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#but starting big things is a COMMITMENT.. with CONSEQUENCES ! ! i just want to avoid them ig

level2janitor · 25 days

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Diceless skills

the more i run and play RPGs, the more i start to be skeptical of dice. i like dice - i like rolling them, i think there's a whole lot of areas where they make a game better. but i'm skeptical about how they're the assumed default for how you resolve stuff.

ramble about ttrpg design under the cut

the way D&D handles skills is simple: you roll a die. if it's a big enough number (modified by the difficulty of the task & how good you are at it) you succeed. if not, you fail (usually meaning nothing happens). what this amounts to is a random chance to fail.

there's storygames that use more nuanced mechanics - no null result! rolling low is less 'total failure' and more that some twist happens. that can be more interesting. (i'm not familiar with a whole lot of storygames, so this is an oversimplification based on my limited knowledge, correct me if i'm wrong)

now these generally work fine for what those games are trying to do. they use uncertainty to generate drama: oh, shit, i failed the super-important deception check to convince the guards i'm a harmless merchant, now the situation escalates. perfectly good mechanic for your standard 5e campaign.

but that kind of stopped working as soon as i branched out into OSR games.

see, dice fill a very different role in an OSR game. these systems are designed with high lethality in mind - your fighter has 1d8 hit points, a sword deals 1d8 damage, you just die at 0HP. if you run them like 5e, you start killing PCs left at right and it can be very demoralizing.

the intended playstyle is, instead, that the players circumvent die rolls through cleverness - once combat starts, your fate is in the hands of the dice, so you make plans that avoid combat or swing the odds so far in your favor that the risk is worth it. so the dice still feel like they fill a good role, making combat deadly and unpredictable on purpose to set that dynamic.

this breaks down when you use the same logic for basic task resolution. most OSR games don't have skills, but i often see the misconception that you're supposed to use raw ability checks instead or the GM makes up a success chance on a d6. these fundamentally do the same thing as a traditional roll-to-win skill system: make luck a factor in basic task resolution.

the problem is OSR games have such high stakes in the form of very possible character death that involving luck in basic task resolution can be disproportionately punishing. "you failed the stealth check, roll initiative!" works alright in 4e or 5e where combat is the game, but in the OSR that's a line you very rarely want to cross.

(this is also why old-school D&D isn't my OSR of choice, since the thief just makes a bunch of tasks into die rolls with abysmally low success chances you'd never want to rely on)

instead the expectation is the GM is both generous and transparent with task resolution. most things should be a success or not doable; if something has notable consequences or is iffy enough to require a die roll, the GM should tell the player what is at stake before they commit to taking the action. (die rolls still have a place in terms of risk management but i feel they should be opt-in.)

this has worked pretty well in my games, but i missed skills as ways to differentiate PCs and allow specialization into different areas. it's a lever for customizing your character that i really like about D&D, helping two members of the same class feel distinct. so the best skill system i've found that still works well in this environment is this one borrowed from Joseph Manola:

Spending a skill slot on something means you are really good at that skill, and will always succeed at attempts to use it (emphasis mine) except under severely adverse conditions. If you have the Climbing skill, for example, you can automatically climb any normal surface you encounter, although doing so quickly or quietly might still require a Dexterity check.

it's a houserule i put into my Grave campaign for my home group and a core mechanic for iron halberd, and everywhere i've put it, it's run smooth as butter.

it feels like it slots into the OSR playstyle so, so much better than the old-D&D thief skills. die rolls are almost a punishment, so why bake them into the task resolution players use when playing as intended? the diceless skills are instead a reliable tool in your toolbox, and problem-solving with them should be rewarded.

i've also worked out what i think is the ideal number of skills for an average PC - two. less than that feels highly restrictive, while more than that feels like you have everything you really want for most PCs (thus devaluing PCs that spec into having more than two). i let players drop an attribute by 1 for an extra skill or vice versa, to allow for some PCs to be more skill-focused than others.

other variations on this idea include Dice Goblin's time, gear, skill system. i like this one because it's easy to houserule in a way for a player to double down on a skill - spending 2 skills on the same skill just lets that skill count for 2 requirements instead of 1.

overall they've been fun to use and players feel good using them. they do lose that drama aspect, but i find it easy enough to create tension in other ways in an OSR game. i might even try putting them in a non-OSR game because they've just worked really well.

#iron halberd #osr #ttrpg #game design #nsr

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noisytenant · 4 months

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rambling personal/introspection i guess, positive-ish

while im not doing "well" in general ive been starting to feel a sense of peace and unburdening with some things.

i think that given the pain of living in certain conditions, it can feel unbearable to imagine going another day with things as they are. i spent so much of my life "waiting it out" that i felt like it would be a crime against myself to not respect my feelings and emotional needs as they came.

but when you set yourself on addressing these things, sometimes you get buried in a cacophony of calls to action, an endless stream of internal requests that often contradict each other. i thought that perhaps i could chart an efficient course to meeting the most needs with the least actions, but strategizing takes time away from action too.

so i'm trying to loosen up and not set a strict dogma for how and when things happen, so long as they comply with external needs (eg there is a ticking clock on how long i can go without income before major and bad life changes activate; i need to eat and sleep a certain amount every day). i'm trying not to be too hard on myself for not living up to expectations and to accept certain patterns of behavior, to be more curious and to not immediately problematize them.

for example i'm watching wordgirl a lot and it's somewhat avoidant, but it's also something that lubricates the meeting of other needs and makes me happy, so it's not a "bad" or even fully "maladaptive" strategy. just a complicated one.

in the time shortly before my breakup, something i feel like i have still only fractionally processed (and that's okay according to my hip new state of mind), i felt like there would be disastrous consequences for less-than-ideal behavior. knowing the relationship and my mental health were both on the ropes, i wanted really badly to do things the best way i knew how. but i think it kind of would have been okay if i did it any other way too. it would have sucked but been fine if we screamed at each other, it would have sucked but been fine if we stayed together, i think anything would have been okay because you have no choice but to live with your actions and keep acting forever

something i struggle a lot with is in committing to decisions vs. being flexible. big questions in the fight for agency. i can't prescribe a heuristic for deciding whether you stick to a principle or change your mind, but in the moment i'm basically going back to the strategy of, "i'm going to do things however i'm doing them until something gives way and makes me need to change paths". and i think that's a freeing sentiment, one i'm able to access because i'm no longer in a relationship--i don't need to worry for two. i hope in my future relationships, platonic and romantic, i can maintain a greater sense of security that is resilient to these shifting tides.

a big thing also is that i'm temporarily electing not to dig into introspection, something i've seen suggested but hadn't really understood and kind of resented. in practice i'm using it to mean, "the most dire parts of my inner world will communicate with me if they are relevant. given my immediate needs, it might be better to wait until i have more breathing room before consciously exploring things." so i'm trying not to worry about, for example, being a person who forgets parts of its own life and experience because those parts will come back to me in due time.

ultimately i'm trying to give in to spontaneity. a feeling is only intolerable if i cannot tolerate it; if i'm finding that i'm avoiding or dreading something, it might really be intolerable, but i am constantly reminded how easy it is to actually survive and persist throughout the pain (this is only my personal experience)

it's hard and hurts to know you're carrying these burdens that ache for release and you're unable to address them completely. i hope to be able to give myself the care i deserve sooner rather than later. but maintaining stability and progress is a kind of care too!

and that's the nature of living, isn't it? ultimately, i want to be honest with myself and others. it's evidently the case that i can't solve every problem of mine overnight just because it would be nice if i could. i think all of me (or most of me, let me not speak for everyone) can appreciate an honest "no i can't solve your ass indefinitely" over "sure honey just a minute [doesn't do anything]". so for the moment i'm happy to be here and hoping i will be in better circumstances soon.

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keisoule · 1 year

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BLIND FAITH WILL LEAD YOU SOMEWHERE, NOT IN HEAVEN, THOUGH: A REFLECTION IN THE MOVIE "PRAYERS FOR BOBBY”

TW: mentions of suicide, blood, blade, and death.

Any LGBTQIA+ individual could relate to the movie Prayers for Bobby. The story revolves around a young gay man from a religious family who believes that homosexuality is a horrible sin against their God. After realizing that Bobby's death was a result of their ignorance toward him, Bobby's mother started advocating for LGBT rights. Bobby's mother, Mary, realized that her blinding faith prevented her from seeing how her son's situation was getting worse. Bobby was already experiencing religious trauma from his family, but her mother believed that he was ill and that God would heal him. Consequently, Bobby committed suicide.

I also experienced being a Bobby in the family. I experienced the same thing that happened to him: my sibling outed me. The only difference is that she unintentionally outed me, but the outcome was the same for both of us. My family was making homophobic remarks toward me. They started questioning my faith in God and quoting verses they believed would make me feel guilty. I felt pain in response to what they did, and a part of me thought it was because of who I am. Because I had already anticipated this picture, I assumed that I would feel numb and was hoping I would be wrong. Sadly, they are opposed to my sexuality. In the early phases of grief, I initially rejected the possibility that they might be in shock and still be processing what happened because this is not typical for them, given their religious beliefs. In the same way, Bobby did when he denied that he was possibly not gay and had fallen prey to temptation. I also had doubts about my sexuality and believed I might just be confused. Bobby was angry during the second stage of grief because his family insisted he was ill and not normal. I became distraught with myself. I was questioning why my mother was frustrated, how much my sexuality had hurt them, and other such things. Like Bobby, I read the Bible and attended church-related seminars when I was in the negotiation stage. Because I am not viewed as a heterosexual, I need to perform nice deeds for God to accept me in heaven. As I nearly killed myself with a blade when going through the depressive stage, I believe this is a sensitive subject for me. I slit my wrist and shoulders, allowing the blood to pour all over my body. Because I shut my room door, no one was able to see it, and I assume no one noticed that I had been in my room the entire day. I didn't think I was depressed at the time since I was avoiding self-diagnosis. I want to get checked out, but my parents won't let me because we can't afford to counsel. They believe it to be a financial waste. "Kaya ka nagkakaganiyan e, magdasal ka kasi." It is really tough growing up in a religious household, "Kakasama mo sa barkada mo mga ganiyan natutunan mo at nangyayari sa'yo." I also went through traumatic religious experiences, just like Bobby endured. You will always hear their irrational opinions and observe how they force their beliefs on others. Acceptance, which is the final stage, is a challenging one to get to. In my instance, I started being extremely harsh on myself mentally, emotionally, and physically. Once more, I came close to committing suicide, but I don't know why I hesitated. I've never figured out the cause, and I still don't. I just found that I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that there is nothing wrong with who I am and that I should not let anyone hurt me—including myself—just because they believe homosexuality to be a sin. I regained some of my confidence since my friends genuinely embraced me without making judgments. They are so dear to me. At my darkest hour, they did give me comfort, and I am genuinely thankful for that.

To summarize, the movie is a great representation of how one's parents' ignorance could lead to their child's death. Homophobia is still a big issue in most parts of the country since Christianity dominates the Philippines. This mindset being hard to remove to the people’s mind is the biggest challenge to the community. Being homosexual is not a sin; no one has the right to hurt a person just because of their sexuality. We humans should choose whoever we want to love without feeling any guilt. If being queer will make me go to hell, I will gladly accept my fate rather than be a hypocritical believer in God.

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ecliidse · 1 year

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PUBLIC VS. NON-PUBLIC INFORMATION

PUBLIC INFO ( everyone knows, or it’s general common knowledge )

he’s the kahuna of ula’ula island, in alola, and the local cop living just outside po town, where he keeps an eye on team skull.

he really doesn’t like to be a kahuna, and if he manages to, he will avoid his duties. he won't do such for trainers attempting the trials, though: those are things he tends to respect as much as possible.

many people believe his trial to be the easiest, since he never wants to do it and openly complains about it.

his house is pretty much a shelter for stray meowths; as a consequence, he always has something to feed and cure pokémons. if you knock at his door, he can help your pokémon with base care, and help you bring them to the nearest pokécenter if something more is needed.

SEMI-PUBLIC INFO ( he might not talk about these openly, but he doesn’t hide the info either. people who are observant or look around his house can find clues to these, or can be heard from people who know nanu closely )

he was part of interpol until ten years ago. it is commonly believed he left it voluntarily, as he reached the age for retirement.

he has a long scar on a side of the back and part of the arm: he talks about it only if noticed from under the sleeve, but tends to not show it. he has also long scars running down his arms as well now; these last scars on the arms have been caused by a nihilego attack.

he put much more effort in his trial than he shows, and despite not liking his role, he takes the commitment seriously. his trial is very technical, evaluating the trainer’s ability to strategise and adapt quickly. the fact that he’s so often underestimated often plays a huge role in the trial itself.

he’s aware that po town if, at the core, full of kids, and tends to keep an eye on them mostly for that. team skull knows they can count on him if they’re in need of help.

his sleep pattern is pretty all over the place. he falls asleep often, but never sleeps more than four consecutive hours.

he has shot guzma in the shoulder once, but why is generally not known.

NON-PUBLIC INFO ( things nanu doesn’t talk about, and rarely holds clues that might lead to them. your muse knowing these requires us to plot )

his full name is nanu nisshoku. he tends to avoid telling his surname so to not have people trace back his past, and not having to talk about it; at the same time, it's not the world's biggest secret. between the non-public info, it's the one he keeps secret the least.

he is a faller.

he didn’t left the interpol for retirement, but because he had a mental breakdown. he was helped to get through it, but reputed not suitable for service ever since, and offered early retirement - and with offered, i mean pretty much forced to.

his breakdown was caused by an incident during an ultraworld mission, during which he was almost killed by a guzzlord that left the big scar on his back and arm, and one of his partners died. he feels responsible for it to this day.

when his breakdown started, before he could be brought to the hospital, he attempted to shoot himself. after he recovered, he was allowed to keep a gun again, but has always attempted to use it as little as possible.

his inability to show emotions and the apathy he shows so often are a defence mechanism of his mind since his breakdown. he could always control himself, but since the incident he has shut himself completely.

he can’t dream anymore. if he happens to dream, he knows it‘s just what makes him a faller reacting to something - meaning, trouble is coming.

he’s in contact with ultrabeasts researchers, and is updated on a weekly basis about every new information about them. this was prohibited to him by interpol, and he shouldn’t be doing this, but that isn't stopping him the slightest.

he has known giovanni since very young: they are old friends, but their opposite paths separated them long ago.

#❛❛ ¦ study. —— ( 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰. )#gun mention //#suicide attempt mention //#new and updated after 11 months or so!#i find these kind of posts way more useful to have a base than a character sheet idk. have been trying to write a bio for two hours. </3 #these just work better. :') probably also because nanu is a canon muse so people usually already know the base if it makes sense;

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dbinvestigations · 5 months

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Not Worth It

I’m 22 years old. I basically started living 2 years ago. I haven’t accomplished anything significant in this lifetime. I don’t know what I’m talking about because I don’t know anything about life. With that being the case, I would advise one to take some of my statements with a grain of salt…

Although my youth has me blinded to reason and discernment, I do know one thing. I know that ever since I started walking, I have been taught to be cautious around men. Everything from what I wear, to what I say, where I go, my actions, my facial expressions, my posture, the tone of my voice, and I could go on for days. The essence of my whole being has been tied to protecting myself from dangerous situations. Or, to avoid giving the “wrong impression”. And, in the eventuality that I did end up in danger, or that I happened to misrepresent myself in some way, it would be maintained that it was essentially my fault, and I would have to live with the consequences of my imprudence. Until we can build a future where it is safe to be a woman, if I ever have daughters, it's sad to say, but I would teach them the same things, and probably be even stricter with them. However, I would also let them know that wearing a turtleneck won’t stop someone from hurting them if that was their initial intent. If I ever have sons, I would teach them things such as... I don't know, never to judge a woman's character based on her fun Saturday night outfits? Trivial, right?

Every year, the UN holds a campaign of 16 days against gender-based violence between November 25th and December 10th. Similarly, in Canada, on December 6th, we remember that deciding to pursue a career in a STEM field as a woman can be fatal. Now, I don’t know much about mathematics, but my teachers have always taught me to look at both sides of the equation. These systems of polynomial equations where coefficients are embedded in misogyny have been upheld by outdated patriarchal beliefs that we, as women, have consciously or unconsciously assimilated. I am not saying anything new.

I am also no different than most girls. I used to watch “Say Yes to the Dress” and “Four Weddings” when I was younger. I would fantasize about my “Big Day” while my male classmates were dreaming of becoming engineers, pilots, or politicians. For years, even though my parents always made sure I knew I could have the same athletic and professional aspirations as my brothers, part of me had been deeply conditioned to believe that the worth and pinnacle of my womanhood would ultimately be defined by the moment some guy would finally choose me to carry his offspring.

I cannot pinpoint exactly when I realized that my “dream ring” was partly designed to hold me back from saying what I actually wanted to say, doing what I actually wanted to do, wearing, or even eating what I actually wanted to eat by fear of being deemed “undesirable” or “unladylike”. That “dream ring” has us, women, pitted against each other in a race to secure the most costly and precious one, sometimes, at the expense of the sincerity of our female friendships. Furthermore, I realized that even if I did achieve this amazing goal (because I still consider celebrating love and commitment to be a beautiful thing), that ring, statistically speaking, would most likely always be hung over my head. Making me more susceptible to manipulation and toxic behaviour. Preventing me from growing into my most authentic self by fear of having to hire an overpriced lawyer to rip some piece of paper in half. Maybe I’m just being pessimistic.

Violence and abuse take form in many different ways. You know when you don’t feel safe.

I am aware that we don’t all have the luxury of choosing what safety will look like in our lives. Despite my young age, I do know a few other things. I know that whether or not we acquire a fancy ring does not make us any more or less valuable, and does not impair our right to be treated with respect. And I also know that spending a lifetime feeling dimmed, erased, and reduced to a mere accessory (or, at best, a trophy) is not worth it.

I shouldn’t even be holding this kind of discourse anymore. Pardon my coarse language, very unattractive I know, but it’s 2023 for f*ck’s sake. We don’t have to let the patriarchy define us anymore. When we stand together, we have leverage too. On the other hand, it shouldn’t feel like a constant battle. We can give respect to the men in our lives without compromising our identity and our safety in the process. Our value is not tied to the opinion that our male counterparts hold of us. I admit that I am progressively learning how to assert myself, and letting go of the weight of all the passive-aggressive and ambiguous remarks infused with misogynistic undertones that I’ve received from men and women. I understand that it is easier and much more entertaining to label me as something I am not rather than it is to view me as a flawed human being with multiple layers and facets.

All of us need to open our eyes and acknowledge that these societal norms and standards we have been conditioned to uphold are simply alive to control us, classify us, and keep us silenced in boxes. They are made to make us feel insecure, and capitalizing on people’s insecurities is a VERY lucrative business model. In these multivariable equations used to create and maintain ungodly wealth for an extremely small fraction of society, we are all victims.

Violence and abuse take form in many different ways. You know when you don’t feel safe.

A life in captivity is simply not worth it.

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brandonmcadory17 · 8 months

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I’m hoping that Michigan State football will win it’s first game of the 2023 college football season in the season opener vs. Central Michigan because at the end of day it’s about being consistent. Michigan State should be able to win vs. Central Michigan in just at least a score of 28-3 or 42-10, but I want to make sure that avoid putting Michigan State content on YouTube because I’m just starting to notice about how bad of an idea it is to do so and it’s the least popular thing to do and it would have intended consequences and as far so called college football fans I’m just sick and tired of them complaining about Michigan State because it’s just sad that there would be hate towards Michigan State for something that has absolutely nothing to do with the fans and as much as certain college football fans talk trash about Michigan State, they should be going after Michigan because Michigan Football head coach Jim Harbaugh is now suspended for 3 games in the 2023 college football season for his role in the 2020 recruiting scandal as the Michigan Wolverines in college football are currently being investigated by the NCAA and it’s expected to stretch to 2024, but ideally the sad thing about it, which I’m not surprised, is that half of certain college football fans, specifically in the Big Ten, is that they have the audacity to prematurely make up excuses for Michigan, but refuse to actually hold Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines football program for actually doing something to cheat in college football by violating NCAA rules regarding recruiting because they incentivize cheating in college sports, including college football and it’s clear that they hate transparency and just simply hate the NCAA for conducting a reasonable investigation. I can see that it’s a phishing expedition, but when Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh goes about his way to refuse to cooperate with the NCAA, unlike the Michigan Athletic Director and not everybody who watches college football is going to condone, even sports host from Outkick named Dan Kakich is simply calling out Michigan Head Coach Jim Harbaugh for lying about the 2020, so Michigan suspending Jim Harbaugh for the 1st 3 games of the 2023 college football season is an indication that yes Jim Harbaugh was at the center of the Michigan Wolverines’ football program of cheating in college football by committing level 1 recruiting violations and for some strange reasons if that were to bother certain Big Ten college football fans, then they have no business watching because at the end of the day it’s about ensure that the NCAA creates a healthy environment to ensure that cheating has no place in college football and any other college sport, so that’s all I have to say as I hope that Michigan State wins vs. Central Michigan Tonight.

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alyjojotarotreads · 10 months

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Yes/No Question for Rickshaw

Q: Will I find another job soon?

A: Wheel of Fortune - 3 Cups - 8 Cups

Regarding: Ace of Pentacles

In the preshuffle, I got that you may have acted impulsively, and are trying to avoid the consequences within your relationship, which is also being reflected heavily in the reading. Basically….it’s not so much your job that needs concern (though it obviously is 💯), but it’s also definitely your romantic person’s reaction to this. I assume you’ve acted without talking to them about this decision beforehand…and I don’t think you can escape the consequences of that 😬 You two come out as King & Queen of Pentacles, but your energy is flipped, showing it’s all on them to manage the bills, responsibilities, you name it, and they’re going to probably feel disrespected by the assumption they’re going to just handle it.

Right off the bat, to answer the yes/no question, the answer is no. But it’s because you’re going to be/already are reaching a little too high, outside of your abilities, education, experience, etc. Page of Swords rev in this case is “imposter syndrome” or a lack of knowledge for the roles you’re trying to fit. You’re after money 💰 and you don’t seem to care about anything but the money, which is not going to get you where you want to be. You will realistically be rejected from things you don’t have the experience or requirements for.

How this all plays out - Wheel of Fortune. I’m definitely getting there will be no escaping or avoiding the consequences of this decision, your partner alone won’t have it, but there’s also something karmic that Spirit may use as a lesson for you. There’s an energy here of you wanting a lot for very little effort, and not really committing to things you sign up for. I promise I’m not attacking you, no judgement whatsoever, the job market sucks 🙏 I do see that your person CAN handle the sticky situation you’ve put yourselves in, either on their own or with help from a friend/family member, there’s an impending Tower situation here that will be avoided and things should start to look up from there.

You will be learning a lesson in leaving things behind that are unfinished or unprepared for, you will have regrets once you see the reality of your situation and what’s actually out there (right now anyway). Your person is going to probably lay on the guilt thick for not doing your share of things, they won’t appreciate HOW this has happened. If you were fired, that’s one thing, but I’m getting it was your decision.

Advice: The Magician - The Chariot rev - The Fool

All major arcana, again Spirit will use this situation to teach a deeper lesson in…being practical, discipline, spontaneous actions leading to unfavorable consequences, etc. Whatever big dreams you have in your head will be blocked right now. The Fool seems to be saying that you CAN have something right away, if you go with what’s available, and I get that you’re going to have to. It’s like a test in proving yourself, your dreams won’t just be handed to you immediately. Wheel of Fortune may show divine timing, get what you can for now, and further down the line something may come along that’s more your style, but you can’t afford to wait for it to come 💚

Charms:

Lips 👄 on 4 Swords show there was no communication about this impulsive decision to break or become independent from work. You may feel they were asking too much of you, and it led to a heated decision or a walk out is the vibe I get. The consequence at home is going to be because of the lack of speaking on this, acting in self-interest and not togetherness. They’re angry but also hurt by it. 2 Pentacles could be showing you were already kinda pressed for extra money before this happened.

Snowflake ❄️ on 6 Pentacles rev is icy behavior, probably from your person. They’re not going to take this well, or aren’t, I’m sure you know this already. They’re definitely going to let you know a thing or two, probably what all I’ve been saying but more emotional, they want you feel bad about this.

Carriage ✨ on The Magician are big hopes and dreams you initially feel you can pull off, this will be easy, and I just don’t see that happening. Not how you’re thinking it will. It’s definitely going to be a situation of need vs. want and big dreams are going to have to take a back seat for the foreseeable future. But those opportunities DO exist, the sooner you’re realistic and humbled about the situation, the sooner you can find something “good enough for now”, and just keep your options open & keep looking later on.

#thank you! ❤️#wishing you all the best

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tophthetrickster · 2 years

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Writing Journal - 27 June, 2022 - Rikudo ch15 Complete

Just finished working on chapter 15′s first draft.

It took three months to get here. In that time, I’d managed to pick up a new hobby again (World of Warcraft), and get through a good part of the current raid tier.

Unfortunately, this has meant that I haven’t been able to write every day.

Obviously, this has meant that progress has slowed down, though I have to say that it partially worked out in my favor, as it gave me more time to think on how to do it. All the same, I’ll be avoiding letting three entire months go by before I get to finish an update, as the loss of momentum was definitely felt after I got back into things.

Still, the chapter itself presented me with some challenges that I want to talk about here.

One of the goals I had for this arc was to see how well I could handle a pitched battle from multiple fronts. In particular, handling it from the viewpoints of the main kids, the people defending the port, and the people fighting out at sea.

That’s three theaters where the battle’s taking place, each with their own developments that can affect each other, especially in the last case. One of the challenges I discovered was making sure to sequence segments correctly so that what happened at each theater would have consequences for the others.

Naruto take out the ships, the situation at-sea changers and Raiga decides to commit forces elsewhere, starting the fight for the city to draw them out.

Team 7 and some of the mist ninja move to defend, this leaves the port potentially open if not for the barrier and the traps.

Raiga and the Akatsuki members are preoccupied, but Kisame is difficult to take down even two on one, and Itachi steps in to help since he can’t not, so Kisame gets out and hits the now less-fortified port.

I think this bit I partially succeeded at, but how much of it I needed to do was something I may have underestimated, since it ended up taking most of the arc to go through, with fights changing so much that we could barely have time to really setup big encounters to focus on.

The climactic encounter between Kagami and Kisame only lasted this chapter and the one before (which I’ll be uploading sometime this week since I need to give it an editing pass). I feel like it deserved more focus since it sets up stuff for the future, and is more than a little personal for Kagami as a character.

I can say the same for the fight at the city, which devolved into a grind of bodies with a relevant single opponent only showing up near the end in the form of Raiga and Karashi.

Which made this version of the Wave arc a very stark difference from what it was in both canon and most pieces of fanon work I’ve seen, which largely keep it that way it was in spirit if not in fact.

All the same, I’m confident I managed to meet my goals for the arc for both spectacle and the development for the characters, but that’s something I’ll be covering next chapter. I found it hard to squeeze in character development when I kept the pace of the fighting so hectic.

Some could argue that it’s a bad thing, since a lot of development in canon happens at knifepoint. On that I’d partially agree, but one of the things I did want to cover in this arc was how little time you’re given to make decisions in battle, especially in cases where talking it out is taken off the table.

I’m definitely looking forward to showing you guys chapter 15. It’s over ten thousand words long on the first pass, and has some scenes I’m pretty proud of.

#writing #writing journal #journal #naruto fanfiction #fanfiction #writing progress

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ilyrafe · 2 years

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𝒔𝒐𝒇𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒑𝒉𝒂𝒃𝒆𝒕 ; 𝒂. 𝒘.

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

he has a very unusual way of showing affection: gifts. actually, it’s his way of apologizing, because he can’t really say “i’m sorry”.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

he would be the friend you’d have a little crush on, he would know and he wouldn’t do anything about it.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

not very often, but when he does, he’s always the big spoon, but it doesn’t last too long.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

he can cook and clean, but would rather have someone do it for him (not you).

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

he would hate the confrontation and would avoid the why’s and all the questions. he would just leave and you’d know.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

nope. absolutely not.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

normally, he isn’t. but, if he really likes you, he’ll die down on the roughness, try to be more mindful, but not too much. he can be hard to read and too direct with his words (even if he doesn’t intend to).

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

it’s rare. he doesn’t like to show physical affection.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

he will never say it.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

if he sees another man just looking at you, he’ll end him.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

his kisses almost always lead to sex, and he’s a great kisser. he doesn’t like to kiss just to kiss, he always wants more.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

he hates children, finds them annoying and unnecessary. obviously does not want to have them.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

mornings are quiet, almost entirely silent. one of you makes breakfast,

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

nights are almost always sexual, unless he’s away.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

it’s difficult to learn about him. very rarely he’ll open up and say something new about himself, but you let him take his time.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

august has no time for bullshit. almost everything annoys him and if he’s too angry at someone they’ll most likely suffer the consequences.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

oh, he pays attention. he knows every little thing about you and more.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

he won’t ever admit it, but he loves when he comes back and you greet him with the warmest hug. it’s nice to feel wanted by someone.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

august is overwhelmingly protective of you. he might not be the best partner, but he would go through heaven and hell if something bad happened to you. he taught you self defense, how to shoot and gave you a gun.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

if he wanted to, he could be more welcoming, but he doesn’t want you to get the “wrong idea”.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

being a criminal would be one…

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

he likes to look presentable. his beard is always groomed, his hair is always combed back. he goes to the gym every day, eats right.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

yes, but he won’t say it.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

august struggles immensely with his emotions and feelings. his father, who had a big influence on him, made him not want to be in touch with his emotions at all and now he can’t fully connect with others on a deeper level.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

someone that’s too clingy, demands too much of him, liars.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

he cannot sleep more than four hours.

#my writings #henry cavill #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x you #henry cavill imagine #henry cavill headcanon #august walker #august walker x you #august walker x reader #august walker headcanons #august walker imagine #mission impossible fallout

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no-droids · 3 years

Text

Out of a Trillion

gif credit: @bestintheparsec

Part Fifteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 12.6K

Warnings: uhhhh so there is a bit of SMUT in this one, not too much and I imagine if you’ve made it this far then that won’t be too big of a deal LMFAOOO uh some ANGST and my attempt at HURT/COMFORT and also violence/blood/injury description, so look out for that!

A/N: I started writing this before the season finale aired and I know we all want a bit of goodness and softness after it, but hopefully this will be okay! I’ll start working on the next part tonight

***

Everything changes and yet somehow nothing does.

From that point on, it’s like… like you’re both just suspended in this perpetual state of wondering, waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know he said it’s up to you, but what the fuck? Look whenever you want? That’s way too much fucking pressure, he’s out of his mind. You’re not equipped to handle that, who does he think you are? Someone that can just… decide things?

And it’s not like you’re afraid of the commitment, or that you don’t want to look. You do, but every single time a moment comes, it just never… feels right. You don’t know what you’re waiting for, what feeling or meaning you’re expecting to magically present itself to you, but you can’t shake the idea that there should be more to it than just randomly deciding to open your eyes at some point, shouldn’t there? Din said there was no ceremony, nothing fancy, and he gave you permission to look because he said he’s not allowed to ask outright, whatever that means. It’s a standing offer because you guess he isn’t allowed to prompt it for some reason, but unfortunately, that leaves you in just about the shittiest position possible. Now everything falls to you—initiation, execution, and consequence—and Maker knows you’ve never been that great making decisions under pressure.

But you do want to look. Sort of.

Sort of. Because… well, this probably won’t make that much sense, but you’re afraid. Mostly for him. What if he’s making a mistake? It sounds stupid, but you’re afraid of what this means for him, the sheer perpetuity of this decision he’s now expecting you to make for the both of you. This isn’t your creed, not yet, and you feel like there’s still so much to learn. Not only about the Mandalorians and his culture, but about him. To know is to love, and so you’ve taken to asking any nonsensical question you can think of whenever he’s around. Though you weren’t expecting it at first, you’ve learned that he’ll always give you some sort of an answer. Some of the highlights include:

“How old are you?” (“I don’t know. Probably mid-forties, but there’s no way to tell anymore.”)

“You don’t know your birthday?” (No, I… think it was in the winter.”)

“What’s your last name?” (“Djarin.”)

“Do you have any freckles? Or moles, or birthmarks?” (“No, none that I’ve ever noticed.”)

“Do you cut your own hair?” (“Yes, but it’s been awhile.”)

“Do you have dimples?” (“I don’t smile in mirrors.”)

“Are your earlobes attached or detached?” (“What kind of question is that?”)

And so forth.

He also gives you so many fucking opportunities to look. One right after the other. You used to think Din was incredibly trusting with how often and voluntarily he decided to take his helmet off around you—he didn’t wait a single day once he first felt your hands on his skin to take it off in your presence. You remember being blown away by his unexpected willingness to part with it after hearing so many tales of the Mandalorians from Kuill; stunned by the ever-present ability to just open your eyes at any moment and that’s all it would ever take. One simple movement—life-altering, and so easy.

Now you find it nearly impossible, muscle memory just won’t allow it to happen naturally. And yet somehow, avoiding it is like stepping around land mines. He doesn’t trick you—he doesn’t set it up, he doesn’t surprise you or anything, but he’s… less careful. When the kid is awake, Din acts normal—he walks around fully armored, he goes on hunts and returns a few days later with a quarry, teaches you more self-defense techniques in the cleared out hull while the kid watches and giggles at your pain from the safety of his floating crib. But when the baby goes to sleep, he’s taken to lounging with the helmet off. He only used to remove it to eat, sleep, or… do other things with you, but he never used to take it off just… because. Now he does. Now he’s less careful about darkness, less strict about how much light he allows to touch him.

Now he shares every single meal he can with you, sitting just off to the side so you’ll never see him on accident but providing the free exercise thereof should you ever decide to seek it out purposefully. Now he interrupts you in the middle of your complaining about the bruises on your knuckles just to lift the rim of his helmet the slightest bit, lean down and give you a quick kiss, and then lower it back into position again before you can even catch a glimpse of the lips you only recognize by touch. Now he keeps the light on when he goes to take a shower, he leaves the door cracked.

It’s starting to give you heart palpitations, you swear. At one point, he lets you to see the entire back of his head and it nearly launches you into a fucking crisis.

It’s the middle of the night and he just got up from bed to use the restroom. He’s quiet enough not to wake you on the way over, but then across the hull and with his back to you, Din flicks the light on in the small bathroom without closing the door. Immediately rousing you after being so accustomed to the pitch blackness, you lift your head from the warmth of your shared pillow just enough to blearily make out the sight of him leaning a hand up against the wall and dropping his head down, and it takes you a second to realize that it’s actually him.

Soft, dark brown locks ending at his collar but somehow looking longer than you ever imagined when you’ve run your fingers through them. Cascading in shaggy, natural curls—tall, broad shouldered and trim waisted, naked as the day he was born. Your heart starts to squeeze in your chest and it just never stops, and for the second time in your life, you feel like he woke you up in the middle of the night just to show you one of the most beautiful things the universe ever decided to hide. There are trillions of people in this galaxy and how many of them have ever seen a sight that would compare? He’s just a man, you don’t think a single person would bat an eye. But to you, he’s… his own monument. Constructed in honor of everything dazzling that happens to lie just underneath something else. A breathtaking view, even from this angle, that could only ever mean something to you.

Would you ever be able to know him? No, that’s not phrased right. What you mean is that… over the course of all your time together, you remember thinking that if he ever took his helmet off, he could walk right by you and you’d never be able to tell the difference. He could be anybody. There are trillions of people in this galaxy and how many of them have the same features? Brown hair, brown eyes, sunkissed skin that only one person is allowed to kiss, not even the sun. Would you ever be able to know him?

Staring at his back in the blissful silence of hyperspace and feeling like the Maker himself is letting you in on one of his proudest secrets, some wild thought suddenly occurs to you that… you think you would. Somehow.

You can’t explain it and you’d never be able to prove it, but you feel like if you lined up every single person in this galaxy shoulder to shoulder, all however many trillions of them there are, then you could walk the entire length of it and somehow come to a stop right where he’s standing. Every single time. You feel like you could do it in the pitch black. You could do it with your eyes closed.

And, he must just be so gorgeous. Maybe not in a traditional sense (or maybe in one, you’d have no way of knowing), but mostly in just… the rawest sense imaginable. Not like how symmetry and straight lines are gorgeous, but how a mountain is gorgeous. Rocky, dangerous, steep, the product of constant conflict between two immovable sides. He’s got scars littering his body, one of which you remember giving him yourself with a cauterizer on his lower back. He holds himself like his shoulders could tell their own story if anyone ever asked them; built to endure, weighed down and made strong with a collection of burdens he chooses to strap to them, steel or otherwise.

You don’t want to close your eyes once Din slowly turns around to look at you, but it happens anyways and you’ve never been so disappointed in your own cowardice.

But then, in a way, it could just be your own self-preservation instincts taking over. No matter how stunning and life changing the spectacle would be, why would anyone ever stare directly at a supernova? For so long, you’ve told yourself that his face is something you shouldn’t ever see on principle, but in a way, you suppose it’s fair he put this decision on you because he always has, even from the very beginning. He trusted you to keep your eyes closed for months on end and you never had a problem with it, so why is it so hard to open them now that he’s given you permission?

A couple weeks of that, and you start to worry that you’re unintentionally rejecting him.

It’s the last fucking thing you want, but how can you avoid it? Din is… different, he notices. He’s made a living off of finding things that inherently don’t want to be found—he knows all too well what secrecy looks and sounds like, he’s quick and observant and you don’t stand a single fucking chance against him in all the years of his practice.

But strangely, for as often as you feel like you can figure out what he’s thinking without ever seeing his face—realizing what his intentions are ahead of time and not feeling slighted when he phrases things a certain way or just chooses not to speak at all—you never truly realized how much that extended back to you.

He knows you, too. He told you so.

For some reason, you didn’t even consider the possibility of it working just as well the other way around. That you could choose to stay silent, and he’d know why. You feel like the mystery of him just eclipses you in every single way that you don’t consider even yourself much of anything, much less something else to be contemplated and understood. While you wouldn’t necessarily qualify the conflict as not being ready to commit, he seems more than willing to respect it regardless and nothing about the way he treats you or interacts with you changes. Normally you’d say it’s like he forgot the whole thing ever happened, but it’s almost the exact opposite. Like he was just naturally expecting it from you.

Are you truly so predictable, you wonder? He said you’d say no. Was he right? You’re not saying no, you just… can’t remember the word for yes right now. It’s right there on the tip of your tongue and the harder you work for it, the more frustrated you become with your own inability to find it.

But, instead of waiting, you think Din just decides to continue the conversation with the promise to come back to you when you finally figure it out.

Sometimes, especially when he’s gone, you find yourself thinking about what moment you’d choose, if you could. Since you can never seem to find the right one naturally, how would it all go if you could construct everything yourself? Where would it be? Naboo? No, that’s too cheesy. One thing you and Din both have in common is your practicality, your respective propensities for wanting to tackle one thing at a time and not needing frills attached to something in order to find a deep connection to it, a personal value to it. You weren’t even bothered when he didn’t claim you as a girlfriend to Peli, that’s how reasonable you used to be about labels. Now you’re your own antithesis, trying to conjure meaning where there isn’t any just so you don’t feel like you’re the one who’s ripping it away. You want this decision to feel as permanent as it is. You want it to be a happy thing, something that happens when you’re both so in love that you can’t bear to have metal separating you any longer.

You think… you’ll just know it when the time comes.

***

“I have to leave,” comes Din’s hushed voice through the darkness, and even though it’s the first thing either of you have said in hours, it sounds frustrated. Like it’s been bothering him for awhile and he’s just now finally telling you. “I… fuck, I can’t stay here, I should’ve left a long time ago.”

You whine softly into the pitch black, turning your head into the pillow and curling your fingers into his hair. “But it’s still so early…”

“It’s mid-afternoon,” he groans back, dropping his forehead down against your skin and breathing hot air along it. “We’ve been parked here for hours, I don’t know how you can sleep so long.”

“I’m not sleeping,” you pout, before gently dragging your nails down his scalp and feeling his whole body shudder with it. “Earlier I was.”

“Mhm,” he murmurs, leaning down to give you one last long, slow kiss. You sigh when his tongue comes out and glides soft and hot against your lips, tightening your grip on his hair.

But soon he pulls away, lifting the covers from over his head and pushing up from between your spread legs. “This one shouldn’t take long,” he gruffs, planting both palms next to your head and kissing you once more in the darkness, dipping his tongue into your mouth this time. You moan softly and taste yourself on him, moving to wrap your arms around his broad shoulders, but he breaks the kiss and leans back before you can, preemptively avoiding the possibility of getting lost in it. “I’ll be back around dawn.”

You’ve known it was coming for hours now, so you’re able to play it off way better this time around. “Okay,” you breathe softly, dragging your palms up his bare chest as he lifts himself tall over your body. The slight disappointment underneath is so masterfully hidden, you’re almost positive you’re going to get away with it. “Be safe. Please.”

But then… well. Bounty hunter.

Din pauses for a moment like that in between your open legs, letting you slowly slide your hands down his ribs and over the lines of his stomach. You wait for him to move, find his clothes so you can get around and make some food, wake the kid up from his nap in an hour or so. Can’t stay in bed all day, no matter how much you wish you could.

Only, he still hasn’t moved and you start to become concerned. “Din?”

But then he suddenly groans like he just can’t help it, grabbing both of your spread legs and easily lifting them up. You make a sound of confusion as he maneuvers them until they’re pressed together and draped over one of his shoulders, and then his hips drop and push forward to slide himself thick and perfect into your blazing hot cunt.

Still drenched and swollen from cumming in his mouth so many times earlier, you gasp and he just groans louder, a ragged thing scraping out of his throat while you struggle through blind and unexpected euphoria to reach him. But you can’t—Din hugs your legs tight to his chest and settles in just like this, turning his head to drag soft lips and a hot tongue over your ankle before he starts fucking you. Right up against your g-spot, with your whole lower body in the way and preventing you from slowing him down.

You just have to clap both hands over your mouth just to keep quiet since you can’t reach him. You feel his teeth sink into the meat of your calf, hips pistoning far beyond your reach and it feels so fucking good that you almost don’t hear his gritted words against your skin.

“I have to go,” he groans, repeating it over and over until his voice begins to pull tight and it just sounds like a plea. “I have to go, I have to go, I h—have to… h-have to go, I have to, I have to, I have…”

***

When Din finally steps foot out of the ship, fumbling with his rifle and cursing quietly through the modulator, it’s the middle of the night some twelve hours later.

***

Steady…

Steady………

Fire.

—and… you blink as bark splinters.

Did you…? You look down at the blaster in your hand and then back to the ginormous charred tree trunk for a few seconds, wondering if you’re just seeing shit.

No, it’s real. You actually fucking did it. You…

… hit the target.

All of a sudden, your ecstatic giggle echoes loudly throughout the foresty autumn wonderland around you, reds and oranges and yellows crunching under your feet while you start to dance.

“Hey! See that, bug!?” You call out, shoving the blaster into your waistband and shimmying up to your enthralled audience of one, who just so happens to be smiling as wide as you are as he’s scooped up into your arms. “I hit the target, I hit the target,” you sing, beginning to sway the baby back and forth as he squeals, laughing while you bounce him. “No demon powers necessary, little man! I figured it out, I just have to use one hand instead of two. You can retire now, you’re the right age for—”

A twig snaps in the distance somewhere to your left, and you quickly spin around while reaching for the blaster behind your back.

Except all you see is a blue Twi’lek standing out amongst all the fall foliage, his hands cuffed behind his back and stumbling a few steps at a time while a considerably taller suit of beskar shoves him forward. You relax and immediately turn to look down at the ground, trying to bite your lip so you don’t smile too hard while they both approach. You did it—finally, you did it, you’re on top of the fucking universe right now.

You wait for them to pass by and move up the open metal ramp to the carbonite chamber, but then Din apparently decides to pause when he’s directly behind you, yanking the quarry to a sudden halt.

You know you should probably turn around to address them, but you can’t hide the happiness from your expression, it’s way too obvious. Though, after a moment, you decide to shyly turn to face the two men while continuing to bounce the baby in your arms, hoping that his and your matching expressions of excitement aren’t too terribly inappropriate right now.

Din looks from you to the splintered bark on the tree, and then back to you again, before slowly tilting the helmet up in a way that feels… proud of you.

“Congratulations,” he finally says, and you can hear the genuine smile hidden in the modulated drawl.

“Thank you,” you beam up at him, feeling the blood rush to your cheeks. “Was pretty awesome.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” he tells you, and you don’t know why, but the tone of his voice makes you go so warm. It’s not like he’s openly flirting with you, but coupled with your giddiness and sounding like that in front of a bounty he caught in record time, it just makes your heart fucking throb for him.

“It’s alright,” you murmur, shuffling your feet through the crunchy leaves below and trying to play it as cool as possible. You have company. “I’ll be able to do it again.”

“Let’s see it, then.” He tips the helmet over at the tree, and you look between him and the unfamiliar quarry for a second, not used to Din just… ignoring their existence entirely for you. It’s not like the Twi’lek has said anything or inserted himself into the situation at all, but still. Din has one hand latched onto the cuffs behind his back to prevent him from booking it, but other than that, it’s like he’s pretending he’s not even there.

“Uh…” You immediately feel yourself get nervous. “I can… try.”

He nods one single time in silent encouragement, and you slowly turn to face the tree once more. The kid stays cradled in your arm while you reach for the blaster in your waistband, removing it and using your longest finger to flick the safety off with a practiced fluidity. Then, extending it out in front of you and taking advantage of your newfound strategy of only firing with one hand, you line up the sight and pull the trigger.

You wish you could say it hits. It would be so fucking cool and impressive if you hit the target like that, wouldn’t it? But it doesn’t hit. It misses, like usual. Miserably. And then an amused snort comes from behind you.

“Right stormtrooper, you are—” you hear an unfamiliar accent begin to snark, but the rest of it turns into a garbled howl the second Din jerks his elbow back to slam it in his face.

You whip around just in time to see a cascade of blood pouring down blue lips and sharp teeth—holy fuck. You gasp and take a step backwards with the kid, not horrified by the sudden display of violence (not after Din spent an hour teaching you how to do that, too) but not quite expecting it at that moment, either. But then, well… that’s the second time he broke a quarry’s nose for addressing you with disrespect. There was that other one he choked, you’re pretty sure—though you can’t remember exactly what initiated that.

Din yanks the bounty up the ramp without another word, leaving both you and the kid there to process while he shoves him through the hull and towards the carbonite chamber none too kindly. However, by the time he seals the quarry to his fate and eventually makes his way back to you, you just…

Fuck, you feel so stupid.

You shouldn’t even bother, what’s the point? All that practice and nothing to show for it. If you can’t even hit a stationary target with the pressure of others watching, what makes you think you’ll have any hope at all in a situation where you actually need to shoot? Are they gonna stand still for you? Are they gonna be as wide as a fucking treetrunk? You’re horribly embarrassed, so downtrodden in the face of a cruel taunt that you don’t even want to look at Din when he steps in front of you.

“Hey, just try it again,” he says without delay, but the damage has already been done. It’s not his fault, you’re just… not the kind of person who is meant to shoot a blaster, maybe.

“Ah… it’s alright,” you look out and smile sadly at the line of trees surrounding you, wondering how it’s possible that you only managed to hit one of them this whole time. You don’t see it, but Din quickly touches the tips of his fingers to the side of his helmet twice before you look back at him. “I hit it earlier. I did, I promise. You can see the mark if you look.”

His glove reaches out to brush your hair back, so unbelievably gentle after using the same arm to shatter bone just a few minutes ago. “I know you did. It was a perfect shot, you hit dead center. I see it.”

“I did it with one hand, that’s why I tried the thing,” you mumble stupidly, looking down at your feet. Dumb. Dumb.

A strand of your hair is tucked behind your ear. “Wish I was here.”

You glance over at him, feeling your expression suddenly go soft with a wave of affection. It stops all the harsh criticisms, halting your negativity in its tracks and replacing it with just… soft, abstract things. Mostly just warm, nonsensical fluff, but one clear and resounding thought breaking through. You wish he was here, too.

“Maybe I’ll get good at it eventually,” you sigh, slowly handing him the blaster with the barrel pointed down and away from both of you. Din carefully takes it from you, tucking it away somewhere on his utility belt while you gaze out at the designated target and victorious char mark decorating it. “Or hopefully just okay at it at some point. I guess I just need to practice more, right?”

“That’s right,” he tells you warmly, catching your free wrist. “Try using this one when you do.” And then a lightweight piece of metal is gently pushed into your empty hand.

Your expression furrows while you quickly look down at it, and—

You go utterly still at the gift, not even knowing what to think.

The first thing that you notice is the craftsmanship. Brilliant, structurally flawless, the perfect size to fit your hand. You don’t recognize the specific kind of metal that was used—definitely not beskar—but you think it might be constructed from the same material as Din’s old armor. Dull silver, but with reflective chrome filigree accents around the handle, trigger, and safety. It’s uniquely constructed and unlike any weapon you’ve ever seen before—no hard lines or edges, just a soft fluidity to the design that’s so aesthetically pleasing, it doesn’t really even resemble a blaster at all.

You can feel the visor silently studying your reaction while you continue marveling, noticing something new every time you look. The safety is towards the back of the chamber, just like he said it’d be. The sight is electronic, and you examine the way it’s built directly into the barrel.

Are those extra magnets on the inside? Is this able to micro-adjust the plasma release for the best shot? Holy stars, it must have cost a fortune.

“Din, this is…” you can’t decide where you want to look—the gorgeous crafting, the custom design, or him. Standing so close to you, not saying a word while you search for the right ones. “It’s so beautiful, I…”

“Was made for you,” he murmurs. “Had to be.”

You look back down at the blaster to stop your eyes from tearing up. He didn’t have to do this. This is so… sweet, such a lovely thing to do. Don’t cry, don’t cry—

“What is this?” You ask breathlessly instead, rotating the gun until he can see the symbol branded on the handle. You recognize that it’s his signet, but you never bothered to ask him what it’s called, you never saw it as your place. It’s an animal of some sort, one with a giant spike attached to its skull, and you’re glad you’ve never come face to face with one.

“It’s a mudhorn,” he answers quietly. “They’re… dangerous animals. Fiercely protective, preferring solitude. The kid saved me from one a few days after I met him. It’s… the mark of my clan.”

How fitting, you think, and an honor. Perfect for him, and a bone-deep reminder of your two favorite people in the galaxy on your hip wherever you go.

“Thank you,” you tell him, hoping the sincerity in your voice sounds anywhere close to how you feel. You haven’t even had it in your hand for longer than a minute and it’s already your prized position, the most important thing you’ve ever called yours.

Din nods and takes a small step back. “Now hit the target.”

Feeling invigorated and renewed in every single way, you keep the kid tucked firmly in one arm while raising your blaster with the other. The safety clicks off and your back straightens, chin lifting until something about the angle feels… right. The trigger moves easily under your fingertip, and there’s almost no kickback considering how light the weapon is. What you’re not expecting is the pure white beam of plasma shooting out of the barrel—unlike any blaster you’ve ever seen before—but then the immediate sight of it hitting the tree dead center sends a roar of triumph through your ears. Fuck yes.

“Look at that!” Din calls out over the kid’s happy squeal, and there’s nothing you can do to stop your loud whoop of victory. Even though you know it only hit with the addition of those extra magnets to correct your terrible aim, that still feels so good—you feel so fucking powerful and dangerous. You glance over to Din with a wide smile, but then his arm extends out towards the trunk directly next to the one with charred bark. “Hit that one.”

You automatically swing the blaster in that direction and shoot. A few pieces of wood split on impact and send sharp bits flying as soon as the bright white beam collides with it.

“That one,” Din tells you, and then bark splinters a half second later. “That one.” Bark splinters. “That one, that one, that one—” hit, hit, hit, white plasma flying through the air and bark splintering in rapid succession.

He stops and spins around, pointing to a tree at the very edge of the clearing. “That one?”

It’s furthest away but the trunk’s diameter is enormous. As you lift the blaster, you know you’re likely to get it easily with this sophisticated weapon, even across the considerable distance. So instead, feeling like nothing at all can touch you right now and wanting to see how smart the aim mechanism is, you raise up a few degrees higher before pulling the trigger. Pale plasma launches from the barrel, and then one of the tree’s most prominent branches comes creaking and crashing to the ground right where you split it.

You’re beaming by the time Din turns back to you, the most excited you’ve ever been with your own progress. He holds there for a moment while you lower your blaster and wait for him to speak, both of you looking at each other and not moving, until suddenly you hear his voice coming back to you.

Hit the target and I’ll marry you.

One of Din’s hands slowly comes up to the edge of his helmet, but before you can even process the implication behind the gesture, you’re immediately looking down at the crunchy leaves under your feet and clearing your throat.

There’s a beat of silence where you stare down at the dead foliage and wonder why the fuck you just did that. Right in front of him, right to his face, too startled at how quickly you were being confronted with the possibility that you responded in an equally startled way. It was instinctual, automatic and entirely out of your control, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to take it back.

But… you can’t take it back. That’s the way things are, and after a few moments, you hear his boots begin to cross the distance to you.

“Come on,” Din murmurs gently through the modulator, carefully taking the blaster from your hand and clicking the safety back on again. “We have to get going. The fifth quarry is far. Three day trip through hyperspace.”

He doesn’t sound upset or disappointed by your unintentional rejection, thank the Maker. You want to explain yourself somehow, but it appears it isn’t necessary in the slightest. His arm wraps around your lower back and he leads both you and the baby back up the open ramp of the Crest, squeezing you close enough to his side that you have to learn how to walk in a different way to stop yourself from tripping over his boots.

The helmet turns and presses to the top of your head while you focus on moving straight. “Proud of you,” Din murmurs quietly, and your chest fills with enough air that you’d be worried about floating away if he wasn’t latched onto you so tightly.

He eventually releases you and walks over to the armory, pressing a button to unlock the doors while you hold the kid and watch him start to remove the multitude of weapons strapped to his body.

Maybe… maybe this isn’t the right time, but something brave surges up inside you. After receiving the most precious gift imaginable from him, hitting all those targets and hearing him say that he’s proud of you, you’re buzzing with just enough energy that for better or worse, it makes you open your mouth and ask.

“Could I… come with you this time?”

Din nearly jerks upright and looks over at you immediately, but he takes a while in responding. You hope he sees it in your eyes. You hope he sees just how much you don’t want to be stuck here again when this is possibly the one time you’d be able to tag along. It’s a bullshit quarry, one he could do in his sleep, and you’ve been getting increasingly restless while stuck on this ship.

When Din eventually does respond… well, judging from his shift in tone, you’re assuming he was just shocked at the question and didn’t take any of that time to actually consider his answer.

“No.” Short. Unfeeling, and not sorry about it in the slightest, before turning back to return the blasters you were using previously to the armory as if you said nothing at all.

Okay… Um. Not great, not what you wanted to hear, but maybe if you explain yourself better, he’ll listen.

“I just… I’m the only reason you have to get this quarry in the first place.” Your voice is quiet, trying to let go of some of the concerns you’ve kept to yourself over the past two weeks. Your fingers fiddle idly with the kid’s little woolen sack as he hangs out in your arms, wanting to plead your case but feeling slightly nervous now. “You were out having a crazy expensive blaster made for me while I shook hands with Karga and agreed that you’d take more work for less pay. I hate that I did that.”

“You had no choice,” Din mutters, turning around and striding past you while pressing a button on his vambrace to close the Crest’s ramp. “My fault for being late.” And… for as warm and comforting as his voice sounded earlier, it now just sounds… dismissive. Aloof. Half-listening, not really wanting to talk but forcing himself to.

“Well this time, I thought maybe… I might be able to help? Maybe?” Maker, you feel yourself going quieter the more he walks around the hull and ignores you. “Karga said it was just a missing person, not even a criminal…”

“Karga says a lot of things,” he grunts with his back to you, voice completely monotone through the modulator.

Come on, speak up. You’ve lacked a backbone for so long, you’ll never get what you want unless you say it out loud and let it be known. You take a deep breath and straighten your shoulders, trying to put a little bit of spine into it. “I can be useful. I can fight now, I’ve been working on my—”

“You think I’m telling you no because I don’t think you’re capable?” He suddenly whips around, voice ringing sharp and challenging throughout the hull while you freeze. You don’t move but everything about you suddenly feels like it shrinks.

“I-I didn’t—” But he cuts you off, taking a step forward.

“I know you can fight, a Mandalorian taught you how. I know you’re useful, I know it’s just a missing person, and I know you hate it when I leave.” He pins you with his eyes through the visor, his tone harder than you think you’ve ever heard it before. “No. Your job is to stay here, on this ship, with my son, where it is safe, and my job is to go get the quarry. Quit asking. I’m not telling you again.”

The baby makes a tiny little distressed sound in your arms and you blink a few times up at the cold metal, feeling all the good feelings from before just… drain out of you.

Okay, that’s fine. Uh. You… the cockpit is behind you, you’ll go up there and fly then. No reason, just… he should get going.

“Okay, yeah,” you nod and tell the wall over his shoulder brace in immediate agreement, before abruptly spinning around and grabbing the ladder. Din doesn’t move a single fucking muscle while you try to find your way up to the cockpit with the baby held to your chest and a dead stone sitting heavy inside of it, hoping your face doesn’t show the vulnerability you feel wanting to take over as you retreat. Get to the cockpit first, get to the cockpit first, get to the—

“Sweet girl, I…” you barely hear murmured through the helmet from the floor, soft enough to sound slightly shocked, but you scramble into the cockpit and shut the door behind you before he can say anything else.

***

Silence didn't used to feel like this.

At first it was eerie, unnatural and stifling when you spent years in a wide open desert, wind swirling and dust pelting. It suffocated you the first few times you jumped into hyperspace, a phenomena you read all about and considered mathematically fascinating before ever experiencing for yourself. It was… foreign and strange, but you began to value it more and more as time passed.

Then, you started to get to know him and silence just became comforting. Something you could bask in, knowing it was a comfort to him. A choice he made because it just fit him best. You felt safe in it, you felt like you didn’t have to be anything else but you. You never had to break it just to avoid awkwardness, you became… closer to it, until you learned to fall in love with it.

But only when he was with you and it was his silence. Not… everything else’s. Now it’s haunting again. Now the sheer lack of sound through hyperspace is a stranger to you, and the distortion of light surrounding the cockpit feels less about the sheer magnificence of manipulating space time and more about the fundamental disconnect it causes. Gorgeous, but at its core, a severance. Ripping the fabric of the universe apart, tearing a wound in it.

It’s been a few hours and nothing exceptional has happened since your conversation in the hull.

You’ll admit that you’re a sensitive person, and because of that, you’ve always had a problem knowing if you were right or wrong when someone comes at you with a hard enough will. You second-guess yourself, it’s one of your worst traits, and you feel like trying to squash that tendency without knowing the limit is partially to blame for why you’re holed up in this cockpit with the kid. You’re quiet but in a different way from Din. When he doesn’t speak, it’s because most of the time, he’s sure of himself and doesn’t need to. When you don’t speak, it’s because most of the time, you’re insecure and don’t want to.

After being left alone with your thoughts for this long, you’re starting to realize that… he was right. What were you thinking, wanting to tag along? Wanting to hang out while he risks his life for this occupation, you probably sounded so fucking ignorant. Maybe… maybe he didn’t have to say it like that, but his point is still very valid and you’re not sure if you’re really justified in hiding like this anymore.

The way he said… your job, though. That still stings a bit. This hasn’t felt like an actual job in a very long time. Was that just an expression, or did he mean it literally? You’re stuck on it, you’ve just been going over this for hours in your head, trying to figure out if you should be the one to apologize or not—or if this is just you overreacting from the start and no apologies will be necessary at all.

“Sorry you got stuck with me, kid,” you mutter sadly to the baby, watching him fiddle with his favorite metal ball in your lap. He makes a little gurgle, purring in that weirdly adorable little way of his and it somehow feels like a reassurance directed to you that he’s just fine the way he is.

Maker, you haven’t heard anything from the hull in a fucking eternity; it’s like Din turned into a ghost, hasn’t even made a single footstep that you could hear since you last left him standing there. You remember performing a quick flight check as soon as you got up here, lifting off as fast as you could and hoping the thrusters would rumble loud enough to cover your series of pitifully shallow sniffles at being yelled at unexpectedly by a very large and intimidating man, not really crying but not really able to breathe normal either. The little monster was able to wiggle himself around in your lap as you were trying to punch in the correct coordinates for the fifth quarry with rapidly blinking, watery eyes, and then proceeded to give your belly the smallest hug you think you’ve ever been given and pretty much break your heart with it.

Lovely little boy, so sweet when he wants to be. He’s sat with you this whole time, he even tried giving you his metal ball to play with but ultimately decided to keep it to himself when he realized you aren’t nearly as fascinated by it as he is. You know it’s probably getting late for him, and you’ve been weighing the idea of handing him over to his father so he can at least get a good night’s sleep somewhere that isn’t your arms. There’s no blankets in here, just your lap.

“I think I gotta go take you to your dad soon, tiny. He’s probably missing you,” you tell him, trying to keep quiet enough that you won’t disturb Din in the hull. There’s a good chance he’s already asleep. “I think… he might still be mad at me. Maybe you can give him the big eyes, soften him up a little?”

Right on cue, his enormous eyes start to droop closed, and you let out a tired sigh of exasperation. That’s not gonna work, come on. They gotta be open, booger.

You watch him slowly drift to sleep, his ears relaxing until they too start to droop, but when you try to take the ball from him and set it down on the console, his eyes immediately pop back open and the toy slips from your fingertips. It levitates right back into his tiny hands as you watch, and then he closes his eyes once more while tightly cuddling the thing he loves most to his body.

Unbelievable.

He’s a child, and yet he’s…

“How are you so strong?” You ask him, unable to even fathom. “You’re the smallest, most helpless little thing I’ve ever seen and you’ve got such… strength. You defy the universe for a piece of metal.”

He doesn’t hear you, you think he’s asleep again. It’s just as well, you figure. He needs to go sleep in his crib, it’s time. You scoop him up and make sure the little ball stays tucked snugly in his arms, before finally standing up and stumbling over to the door on numb legs.

Only, when it slides open, you quickly stop short.

Because there, sitting on the floor and resting his helmet against the corner of this small little platform leading to the ladder, is the Mandalorian.

So much closer than you expected him to be. So big, crammed into such a tiny place. You didn’t hear his footsteps climbing the ladder, and you would’ve noticed it during the hours you’ve spent in the suffocatingly muted quiet of hyperspace. He can be silent but not when absolutely nothing else exists and he’s got a thousand fucking pounds of steel weighing him down at any moment in time. You took off almost immediately once you barricaded yourself inside the cockpit, so has he… did he follow you up in those last few seconds, right after you shut the door? The ones when you were sniffling like a child and trying desperately to turn the thrusters on before you let the tears come?

His head lifts and his back straightens as you’re looking down at him with his sleeping son cradled in your arms, your eyes slightly redder than they should be. You’re a mess and… he’s been here this whole time?

“Could you hear me in there?” You whisper in sudden mortification, but Din just keeps gazing up at you through the impenetrable metal visor. A complete mystery again. Unreadable—he could be anyone.

When he doesn’t answer you, your heart twists with the possibility that he’s still upset with you, and you quickly turn to the ladder to figure out the best way to get down without jostling the baby.

“I’m sorry.” His voice stops you dead in your tracks. It’s so soft, nearly flipping in and out of the modulator from the lack of volume, the most cautious sounding thing you’ve ever heard coming through the filter. “I… hurt your feelings. I’m sorry.”

And… Maker, if anybody else had said it. If literally anybody else had said it, you know it would’ve sounded like the most sarcastic, dickish remark in such a delicate moment. But, you also remember him telling you once that you were tenderhearted. That the galaxy would never be as kind to you as you are to it. This… comes out sounding like he’s trying to change that.

It comes out sounding like he’s trying to use his voice to hold you because he doesn’t think you want to be touched right now. Like… like he’s doing everything he can to be as careful as possible here because you think he might be attempting to do something he’s never done before. Apologize for saying something he didn’t mean.

“You don’t have to,” you quickly tell him. He’s not good with words and apologies are difficult enough to phrase for normal people, you don’t want him to fret over it if that’s what this is. “It’s okay, I know you’re not… you don’t have to. It was stupid of me to ask.”

“It wasn’t,” he instantly counters, his voice finally seeming to find the floor when it was just hovering before. Not loud—still gentle, still making sure the kid doesn’t wake up and you’re not frightened away, but a bit more grounded this time. “It wasn’t… what I wanted to hear, and I didn’t take it well. Not stupid.”

“It was stupid,” you return amicably, looking down at your feet. “That’s not my… job, like you said.”

Din suddenly hangs his helmet down to his chest, pressing his gloves to the part that curves over his forehead and rubbing it. “Shit. I didn’t mean—”

“You were right,” you acknowledge, having spent the past few hours coming to the understanding that it’s the hard truth and he just phrased it poorly. “I’m not… built for it, I’d only get in your way. I barely just managed to shoot stationary targets with a blaster today, and that’s only with that aim corrector built into the barrel. I’m here to be helpful, not—”

“What are you saying?” He suddenly lifts the beskar to study you, sounding genuinely confused. “What aim corrector?”

That… makes you pause.

“The, uh…” Now you’re confused. “The one that adjusts the plasma release on the gun you gave me.”

He doesn’t move an inch or say a single thing to you in response and you awkwardly shuffle your feet for a second, everything so quiet that you can hear every little snore that goes in and out of the kid’s tiny button nose.

You blink at him after way too long of that, not knowing why he still hasn’t said anything. “There’s an electronic sight and like a bazillion extra magnets packed into the barrel, Din, what else could—”

“Sweet girl, that’s… that’s for the Philithiorium,” Din breathes out, like he’s absolutely blown away by you right now. “That gas is less stable than normal canisters, it takes more magnets to focus the white beam without overheating the metal.”

You stare at him, not truly processing. He’s saying that… you made all those shots today without any help at all? By yourself?

Your eyebrows furrow and you blink a few times, but then his slow, heavy sigh echoes throughout the metal walls with disappointment… and you don’t think it’s directed towards you.

“You’re just… always so unsure of yourself.” He sounds genuinely distraught as his helmet tips down to look at the ground. “I made that worse today.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you quickly shake your head, your chest already beginning to loosen slightly by just being around him, hearing his voice, seeing the metal glint under the fluorescent light overhead when he’s in such a vulnerable position on the floor. “It’s okay, let’s just… pretend neither of us said anything at all, okay?”

“Is that what you really want?” He asks you after a moment of quiet, and for some reason, you hear something in your mind tell you that his arms look so nice right now, don’t they? You could fit right there, perfect and safe again.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” you smile at him, feeling a bit of the ache trapped inside you continue to work itself out little by little. You’ll be back to normal soon, it’s fine.

“No, I mean… do you really want to come with me?” Din asks you, the words sounding cautious. Confused, like he truly never expected the proposition from you at all. “Or… do you just not want me to go?”

Oof, what a fucking question.

Why would he ask this? It’s not pointed; it’s the softest, gentlest inquiry you’ve ever been posed. Maybe in other circumstances, you’d say that him leaving doesn’t have anything to do with it, but… you’re certain that internally, it absolutely does have at least something to do with it and he was just able to know it before you did. Which is probably why his sharp words seemed all the more cutting earlier. It hurt because he said the truth first, verbalized a very deep insecurity you’ve been trying to hide from him and threw it right in your face when shutting you down.

Though, if it worked differently and you were the one who had to be away while he stayed here, you’d like to think you’d handle it way better than how it is now. At least you’d have a real mission to focus on, new things to see and experiences to have. You just feel… confined sometimes.

You take a deep breath and figure you’ll use sitting down as an excuse to think for a second. There’s practically no room but you find it in the back of the cockpit near the doorframe anyways, doing your best to keep the kid level while you slowly lower yourself to the ground near him. Not touching him, but close.

“I just… I lived my whole life stuck in one spot, wanting to see the galaxy,” you finally admit to him, staring at his chestplate but seeing the helmet tilt slightly in your peripheral. “Sometimes it’s just… hard to see the galaxy and still be stuck in one spot, I guess.”

“…You want an adventure,” Din proposes quietly, and though there’s not a single hint of mockery in his voice, you suddenly feel like it’s really fucking dumb when he phrases it like that. What are you, an eight year old? Wanting to go on an adventure, see things you’ve never seen without any concept for real life? Credits? Time? Resources?

You shrug a shoulder to make it seem like it’s no big deal. Why is he even entertaining this right now? “It’s stupid, I kn—”

“Like on Naboo,” he goes on, ignoring your harsh self-criticism, not allowing you the ability to even get it out once he heard the first couple words. “Going through the forest, seeing that waterfall. Someplace to find for yourself. Explore. Experience.”

You… you want it so badly that you think your eyes might tear up just hearing the words coming out of his mouth when he says them like that. Like he… just inherently understands. He knows.

He knows you. He’s not good with words and yet he found the single most succinct way to put what you thought was a complex yearning without even trying. You can’t even answer him, he hit the target dead on and you’re left with nothing to say that wouldn’t just be a miserable lie.

“Okay,” Din says after a moment, giving you a small nod.

You’re lost now. “…Okay?”

“You’re never going on a hunt with me,” he tells you very seriously, no room for arguing. “Ever. And not because you can’t handle it, understand?” He inhales, quickly adding on to his response before you’re able to analyze it the way you want to. “But if you want an adventure, then… I can try and find a way to give you one.”

Stars. He’s… too kind. You somehow feel like it’s more than you deserve. You were honestly hoping to just shadow him on a hunt, watch him work and stay well out of the way when he needs you to. Helping if you think you’d be of any help; an extra set of eyes and hands. You would’ve been fine even if he didn’t apologize for raising his voice at you, he doesn’t have to do this for you.

“Thank you,” you say for the third time today, feeling like each one has somehow multiplied in sincerity.

“It can’t be right now,” he quickly tells you, apologetic but earnest about it. “I have to find the quarry, and I’m supposed to meet with Karga again in a week.”

You never did let him know about the other part of the deal you made with Karga, you admit. Four pucks, no hassling, no hard time constraints. That’s what you shook on, but you just never found a way to bring it up to Din. Especially since you’ve been so preoccupied with hiding your growing disappointment from him whenever he has to go.

“If…” you pause, wondering the best way to phrase this. Yikes, this is a toughie. “Um. If Karga… I don’t know, hypothetically, if Karga decided to loosen the time constraints back to the way they were before the Corellian bounty, would you… still need to meet with him again in a week?”

You don’t think he even bothers shuffling through all those words. “Say what you mean. Please.”

“That was part of the deal I struck with him,” you quickly explain. “You can hunt on your own timetable again and he’ll keep giving you four pucks like before, no more or less after this one extra quarry. It’s like a… replacement of sorts, for the one I kept you from getting the time before. If credits aren’t an issue, you can take more than a week. But only if you want to, you don’t have to. It’s just there and you should know, that’s all.”

He takes his time responding, lifting his helmet just the slightest bit in… surprise? Maybe?

“You never told me you did that,” Din finally murmurs.

“Ah. Well.” You look down at the sleeping kid in your arms. “I didn’t want you to think I was trying to… keep you here.”

It genuinely is a struggle for you, and you think he’s just now realizing that. As much as you know he gets frustrated with you for always wanting him to be here when he physically can’t be, you think it’s only now that he’s truly realizing the lengths you go to in order to stomp that part of you down whenever you feel it threatening to come up. You allowed him to leave every single time without telling him he could stay, knowing that all that was left for you was babysitting and target practice for days on end.

“Will you come over here?” Din finally asks, and the tone of his voice just punches you in the chest. So soft, so distressed from having you so close yet so far from him and just… full of a quiet hope, like he’s fully expecting you to say no.

“Will we fit?” You whisper after a moment, even quieter.

He doesn’t answer, he just reaches for you. You do your best to scoot over to him without waking the kid, and then Din pulls you the rest of the way once he has a grip. You go right into his arms, laying sideways across his lap and supported by his steel embrace.

Oh, it’s not comfortable but you’ve also never been more fucking comfortable. One of his knees lifts and allows you to rest your back against it without worrying about falling over sideways and down the ladder to the hull, thank the Maker. The beskar pauldron over his shoulder digs into your cheek, but Din immediately pushes an arm up to nudge his helmet off and make it better for both of you. Your face automatically fits into the crook of his neck while he sets the beskar on the bend of his knee, and then he silently cradles you while you do the same to his little boy… who does the same to his favorite metal ball.

“Ni tar’tayl su,” he murmurs into your hair, the one phrase in Mando’a you do recognize, especially with how beautiful and elegant it sounds rolling off his tongue. “Forgive me. Ni ceta.”

You sigh your contentment and melt into him, well aware that you’d still be more comfortable in bed. But when you’re pressed hard against his chest like this and the baby is fast asleep in your arms, you get to feel both of them breathing. Din’s right lung is probably bigger than the kid’s whole entire body, but you like the radically different cycles they go through. You think you count six full breaths coming from the brown sack in your palms for every one of Din’s and two of yours. It creates the most beautiful little symphony that sometimes gets a little off track, but always finds its way back around again.

“How do you say…” You ask, feeling his hand slowly move down the curve of your spine, mindless and hypnotic. It catches the edge of your shirt and goes underneath, and even though it’s not his bare hand and there’s no skin to skin, it still feels so good. Not sexual or sensual even, just… a comfort to you. “In Mando’a, how do you say… out of a trillion?”

Din’s breaths pause for just a second, his portion of the synchronized rhythm faltering. Soon it starts back up, and his head turns to press his lips against your hair.

“I don’t think there’s a word for it,” he admits, gently brushing a thumb across the baby’s forehead while he snoozes. “There could be, but I don’t know it. I’d use… out of a million million millions. Dayn alanyc bal alanyc bal alanyci.”

Your eyes begin to drift closed, exhausted from keeping them open after shedding a few tears earlier. Your first fight and you’re already completely in love with him again after a handful of hours of sulking and one conversation. How is that possible? You’re normally a very forgiving person and it wouldn’t have taken much to make you feel better, you just never expected him to… actually want it from you that badly, care enough about it to get on the floor and ask.

Din doesn’t move the entire night through. You assumed he’d make everyone get up at some point and move to the hull, but he doesn’t. You fall asleep against his chest, comforted by the silence once again.

***

The next morning, Din quietly climbs into the cockpit while you’re humming in the shower. You’re too busy basking in the indoor rainfall to feel the ship pull out of hyperspace, and then jump back into it a few moments after.

***

“How long do you think you’ll be this time?” You ask two days later, sitting on the extended flattop of Din’s old cot and swinging your legs back and forth. The baby is currently sitting on your lap and trying to roll the metal ball down your knee so you’ll kick it in the air, you think, because he keeps dropping it at different moments and forcing you to stop moving your legs to prevent accidentally denting a wall. Every time the ball clatters to the floor, he makes a sad sound and it immediately lifts back up into his tiny hands for another try.

Heavy boots clang against the metal floor as Din drops down from the ladder, having just landed the Crest on the surface of whatever planet you’re on. “I’m not leaving yet.”

“Oh…” You blink, surprised. “Okay.”

“I wanted to do some more training with you first, if that’s okay. You can say no if you want, but maybe not,” Din drawls, striding over to the armory and opening it. He carefully removes your blaster from the front shelf, speaking with his back to you. “You’re going to run.”

“Um.” You take a moment to glance around the enclosed hull, before turning to look back at him with your eyebrows raised. “What, like… in place?”

Din sighs and closes the armory before leaning back against the doors, rubbing the face of the helmet in exasperation. “From me, sweet girl.”

Your legs stop swinging, and the baby grumbles and slaps three fingers against your knee. “What?”

“We’re on Sanctuary II,” he explains, turning to grab his black bag from one of the storage shelves. He unzips it and reaches back into one of the larger pockets on his utility belt, before grabbing a handful of credits and stuffing them inside. “It’s a moon, the New Republic occupied it years ago and made it a safe world for refugees and orphans of the Empire. You’ll have your blaster, some credits, a communicator, and a day head start. You’re going to run from me. Show me how much you’ve learned.”

Is… he for real?

Right now? You don’t even know how to respond, you’re too surprised. Even when Din approaches and carefully trades the kid for your blaster, setting the bag down next to you on the metal bed, you still haven’t answered him.

“If you want?” He asks after a moment, and you quickly jerk your head into a nod and jump off the raised platform, almost knocking into him with your sudden excitement.

“Okay! Fuck yeah,” you grin, but Din shakes his head.

“Rules,” he says seriously, and you quickly do your best to frown, trying to compose your thrilled expression to match his tone. “One. This is a safe world, but things can always happen. You have a blaster now, but it’s for emergencies only. Do not shoot me with it. Do you understand?” You nod, but Din reaches forward to grab your elbow. “Out loud, please. For me.”

“I will not shoot you with this blaster,” you vow obediently, carefully cradling the precious firearm in your hands.

“Do not shoot me,” he repeats while pointing a leather finger at you. “Do not… shoot at me. Near me. Around me. No, just—don’t shoot. Unless I am… very far away. Okay?”

Well, he didn’t have to phrase it like that. You frown, but acquiesce regardless. “I will only resort to blastering if it’s an emergency and you are not around.”

He nods a thank you for putting it into better words. “Second rule. Since you don’t have a ship, I won’t either. We’re on foot. I don’t doubt you can hotwire a piece of junk to do what you need it to do, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t. Good?”

Entirely accurate and entirely fair. “Good.”

“Three,” he says. “I’ll have the kid with me, which is both good and bad news for you. Good news is he’ll slow me down, bad news is I can’t promise he won’t also try to intervene at some point if you’re serious about putting up a decent fight. What I can promise is that I won’t encourage it.”

“Reassuring,” you nod. “Also not really a rule. Please continue.”

“Four.” He pauses for a second. “I think I’m wanted by the New Republic.”

You nearly jerk back. “What?”

“I can’t confirm it and I’m not proud of it,” Din quickly tells you, probably the vaguest possible explanation he could provide. “I’m only telling you so that you’ll know your advantage and find a way to exploit it. I can’t be seen by any officers, or they might arrest me.”

Is he fucking serious? “I don’t want you to be arrested, Din, I—”

“I won’t be,” he assures you. “They owe me one, I just don’t want to cash in yet. Trust me.”

You… do. Insanely, and against every logical thought flittering through your head, you do. If you were ever going to bet money that someone would be able to navigate a safe world on foot without being caught by the numerous officers scattered across the surface, then you’d put all your credits on Din Djarin. It… also shouldn’t really surprise you at all that the people seeking his incarceration also owe him a favor, should it? It actually sounds right on par for him. “Okay.”

“Fifth, and this one is important, so listen up,” he continues gruffly. “You check in with me tonight over the e-comm, alright? I don’t care where you are or how safe this planet is, if you don’t check in, I’ll come find you before the sun rises. Say you understand me.”

“I understand you,” you tell him, your heart beginning to pound in your chest at the reality of this actually happening. “I’ll check in tonight.”

“And if,” he goes on, “by some miracle, you manage to make it more than a full day, you check in with me tomorrow night, too. Say it.”

“I will check in with you every single night for the full five days it’ll take you to find me,” you assert, the adrenaline starting to make you brash and giddy.

Din tilts his helmet at you sternly. It is a very, very stern tilt. “Okay. New plan, forget everything I just said.”

Your expression furrows. “What’s the new plan?”

“That is the new plan,” he says, dead serious. “Us. Not doing this.”

“Oh, come on,” you grin cheekily up at him, poking his chestplate. “I’m just giving you some motivation to find me quicker, that’s all.”

Din stares down at you, and… yeesh. Tough crowd.

“Tell you what,” he finally grunts, sounding incredibly unamused with your jesting. “If you can last that long with only a day head start, I’ll let you come with me to collect the fifth quarry. You can even cuff the bastard yourself.”

You know it’s just because he’s rightly confident in his own deadly skill, but hearing him propose the possibility still shoots a thrill down your spine. “Oh ho, you are gonna regret saying that, shiny,” you beam up at him, starting to hop back and forth on each foot with excitement.

“But if I’m able to find you, you can’t ask me ever again,” he finishes shortly, and you immediately go still in front of him.

“What?”

“If I’m able to find you in five days, I don’t want to hear about you coming with me on a hunt and you can’t ever ask me not to go on one,” Din tells you, his voice rough and gravelly through the modulator. Not mean or harsh, but firm. “From now on, it’ll be off-limits.”

You… take a moment, not knowing if you should feel scolded or not. When you don’t immediately say anything in response, he sighs and turns the helmet away from you.

“Leaving is hard enough as it is,” he mutters, looking at the ground. “Hearing you ask… makes it impossible.”

You slowly lower your gaze to the floor as well, feeling your heart constrict tight in your chest. There’s a real pull under his voice, telling you that information even though it sounds like he doesn’t really want to admit it out loud. It… really is a struggle for him too, then. You understand.

“Okay,” you nod. There’s not a single part of you that actually thinks you’ll be able to stay hidden from him for five days while stuck on foot, so this is essentially a given. You’re not thrilled about the idea, but you’re going to do your best to respect it nonetheless, especially if he cares enough to put off hunting and allow you this experience for yourself. It’s a better compromise than you ever imagined, and you’ll do everything you can to hold up your side of the bargain.

Din clears his throat and straightens his spine, turning the visor until it faces you head on once more. “Final rule. I reserve the right to break any rule we just agreed to, or any fucking rule in this galaxy to keep you safe. Good?”

Your cheeks flush with heat, your stomach suddenly filling with butterflies. He doesn’t do that. Din says what he says or he doesn’t say anything at all, there’s no… taking things back, he’s already breaking his own code.

“What happened to The Way says no take-backs?” You ask quietly.

“This is my way,” he answers you. Quick, not even taking a moment to think about it, before pulling out a fancy looking wristwatch thing and clipping it on you himself. “This is your communicator. It takes more power than the one you have now but it’ll reach a further distance. I have one just like it, they’re locked into the same frequency and timesynced together, and the batteries need to be charged every three days. If you make it that long, I’ll remind you.” Din grabs the bag while you slide your arm into it, helping you hook it around your shoulder with one hand while he cradles the kid in his other. Your heart is pounding now, pumping with adrenaline as he pulls you towards the middle of the hull and then wraps an arm around you.

“Hey,” he murmurs, pulling you tight to him and pressing the helmet to the crown of your head. His voice is barely a whisper through the modulator. “Gar darasuum.” For an eternity.

You find some way to wrap your arms around him, even with your blaster in your hand and the kid hanging out in his dad’s other arm.

“Dayn alanyc, bal alanyc, bal alanyci,” you murmur dutifully against the beskar chestplate, knowing your accent is probably butchering the words but hoping they still carry the same sentiment.

And then you’re squeeeeeezed hard enough to get a little air out of you, before you’re let go and he turns around, pressing a button on his vambrace so the ramp begins to lower.

It’s bright outside but not too bright, and everything is warm and gentle and breezy, right in the middle of a lush plain. You inhale the fresh air into your lungs, looking out across the wide open field, having no fucking clue this is where your day would be leading when you woke up this morning. Oh Maker, it’s gorgeous here. Not like Naboo, where every single thing is picturesque and fit for an e-card, but in a soft, understated kind of way. The sky is a canvas of swirling pastel clouds, pale pinks and yellows and blues, and the communicator on your wrist lets you know that it’s just after noon here.

You take one single step down the ramp, before immediately stopping and turning around to bite your lip at him.

“How am I… how am I supposed to outrun you?” You ask, already clueless. “You’re too good, better than me at everything.”

“That’s not true,” Din reminds you sternly, grabbing your hand at your side. “You already know who’s after you, that’s an advantage nobody else has ever had against me. You know how I think. I don’t know how, but sometimes it’s like you can…” He slowly shakes his head. “See me. Through the metal.”

“But… but that works both ways,” you point out, breathless at hearing him say that but needing to focus right now. “You know me, too—you’ll know exactly where I—”

He shakes his head again, but quickly this time. “Remember what I told you a long time ago? What your best weapon is?”

You… do not. He told you so many things, and you’re assuming every single one of them is going to come into play during this endeavor if you want to outlast. You’re going to have to think back and remember all of them individually, find the time to figure out your best plan of action based on the remarkably little you know about how he hunts.

“You’re smart, remember?” Din murmurs, squeezing your fingers. “Your mind works differently, it sees things in ways I’ll never be able to, not even with this helmet. So…” He shrugs a shoulder like it’s the simplest thing in the galaxy. “Don’t try to outrun, okay? Just try to outsmart.”

You give him a nod after a moment, still not really sure about it, before giving his hand one last squeeze in return and eventually letting go.

Outsmart. Outsmart him, use what you know about him to be the most elusive quarry he’s ever hunted down.

As you make your way down the ramp, you’re already thinking. His helmet tracks footprints, that’s a thing you know. You’ll have to find someone to trade shoes with, then—yours aren’t too beat up, maybe you can find a local who’d appreciate a better pair. Are you going to a city? Would there be one in walking distance? The wilderness won’t work, you’ll be too exposed and it would make you an easy target for either him or wild animals. The weather seems clear here though, and you don’t think you’ll need to worry about rain or snow, but if—

“Oh—but when you do see me,” Din decides to add when your feet finally touch the grass, and you pause once more to turn around and look at him. He stays quiet for a second, studying you through the helmet for too long. Like the anticipation is getting to him already.

You bite your lip back at him and adjust the bag on your shoulder, tummy swirling with nerves and excitement. He tilts the visor up, gazing down at you from the hull with the kid tucked in his arms.

“Try to outrun,” he says gruffly, before turning back into the ship and letting the ramp slowly close behind him.

#the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #mando x reader #mando x you #smut #angst #hurt/comfort #reader insert #the mandalorian #rough day #no-droids

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writingwithcolor · 3 years

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Arab Character Joining Corrupt Superheroes, Police Parallels

Anonymous asked:

I’m writing a story with a Arabian diaspora main character. The story is about corrupt superheroes, and how they affect an oppressed superpowered minority. The main character is one of these superheroes, naively joining them in his teens believing he’s going to help people. Doesn’t help that his parents are having money trouble. Eventually he ends up fighting a superpowered crook, and gets a bystander killed.

1)I know portraying an Arabian character committing violence is a pretty touchy subject, even if accidental. Is there any way I can write this that makes it clear to the reader that the action itself is messed up without the unfortunate implication that Arabs are violent?

2)A large part of the story is the MC’s parents reaction. They are loving parents, however after this incident happens, they are confused and ashamed. While they still love him, they temporarily cut ties with him. Eventually they reconcile and start to be a family again. In my research (they are diaspora Saudi Arabians), Family is very important and tight-nit. Shame towards the family is to be avoided at all costs. However I’ve also read that disowning a family member rarely ever happens. Is there a way to write this kind of narrative with respect to this aspect of Arabian culture?

Let us begin with some terminology.

- If a person is from Saudi Arabia, they are Saudi Arabian, or more commonly, Saudi. This is their nationality.

- They may or may not be Arab. Arab is an ethnicity. Not all Saudis are Arab. Not all Arabs are Saudi.

- Arabic is a language. Lots of people across the world who are neither Saudi nor Arab speak Arabic.

- Arabian on its own is a word used to refer to a specific breed of horses.

If you are referring to humans, you want to either say "Saudi Arabian" (both words) or “Saudi” to indicate nationality, or "Arab" to indicate ethnicity. If you’re looking to describe your character’s culture, you probably want to call it Saudi culture. (While grammatically correct, talking about “Arab culture” doesn’t make much sense because Arabs are an incredibly diverse ethnic group and there is no such thing as a single monolithic Arab culture).

Now for the first question. In my mind, the issue is less about the character committing violence, and more about the premise of the story and how it mirrors real-life oppressive structures. You have an organized group of superheroes who think they are doing good by fighting “crooks” but in reality are enacting systemic oppression upon a marginalized group. This immediately brings to mind police violence, racial profiling, and the way that policing in North America is used as a tool of white supremacy while glorified in propaganda as a force for good. Essentially, you are telling a story about a character who joins an oppressive policing force, enacts violence upon a marginalized group as a result, and (I’m assuming) eventually realizes that they are not, in fact, the good guys. This is very close to being a “bigoted character learns not to be bigoted” story. I recommend re-examining your premise in light of the real-life parallels and asking yourself whether this is the story you want to tell.

The issue is compounded by the fact that your character is an Arab teen, who in real life is more likely to be the one facing racial profiling from the police. Taking this character and making him the oppressor in your story makes the already flawed premise even more problematic, especially if the characters in the oppressed group are white.

As for your second question, it seems believable to me that a teen’s parents might reject him if they learned that he committed a crime. However, when the family in question is Arab, you are suddenly feeding into harmful tropes about oppressive and violent Arab parents. You are asking if there is a way to write this respectfully. I believe that there is, but it requires a great deal of care, nuance, and cultural awareness. While it is possible to write a Saudi Arab character grappling with the consequences of violence and familial estrangement in a compelling way, the way your ask is phrased leads me to believe you are not equipped to do it justice.

- Mod Niki

Think about why Arab people committing violence is a touchy subject, and then think about the general propaganda narrative that came about from the act that made things so touchy.

It’s going to sound one hell of a lot like what you have here.

Military and police use buckets and buckets of propaganda to continue hooking in young, impressionable teens to commit state-sanctioned colonialism and oppression. That propaganda looks suspiciously like “we have health insurance, we will pay for your education, you just have to do what we tell you even if that means hurting or killing others, but it’s okay because you get to be the hero in the situation.”

Now, propaganda is a very powerful tool. I was taught, in my media classes, that controlling the message means shaping reality. The media is built as a propaganda machine, and when you start to see who owns what media properties you start to see some really disturbing patterns (Rubert Murdoch owns a lot of right-wing sources across America, the UK, and Australia, and he’s too rich to investigate his culpability in spinning terrible narratives found in right-wing publications. He owns the big names).

As Niki said, this situation mirrors police violence and police-sanctioned terrorism. And the very, very unfortunate implications of making the target of police violence be in that wheel. But I want you to look at the media situation that has made the plot happen.

Because even if you swapped out ethnicities, you’d still have a reckoning to do with the American culture that their primary social safety nets involve killing people.

I am not kidding.

Some of the most well-funded unions in the country are police unions. These people have pensions. They have health insurance. It’s damn near impossible to fire them. They get overtime very well mandated, and it’s a known thing among defence lawyers that arrests happen right before a cop’s shift will end so they get the overtime of filing the paperwork. They absolutely go into poor neighbourhoods and recruit based off people needing an escape, and them having the money to provide it.

A similar sentiment is true for the military, except they push for college education a bit more and don’t really have overtime, but they do have deployment bonuses. So the way to get extra pay for yourself is to go out and do colonialism outside the borders. The military doesn’t necessarily like it when the economy is doing well, and don’t like the idea of college being affordable, because they rely so heavily on poverty and fear of college debt to recruit.

The story you’re telling here goes so far beyond an individual’s actions and instead taps into America’s single biggest cultural investment: that oppressing others makes you a hero.

The Pentagon funds most military media out there as a propaganda tool, including most superhero movies and a large number of video games. This is in their budget. They will also go so far as to literally commission the games to exist. Part of getting that funding is you cannot critique America’s military, basically at all (the only exception I’ve seen is Ms Marvel, but that’s set in the 90s). This turns any sort of military-using media into a potential propaganda tool.

And the thing is? Even if you fall for that propaganda and were part of the military or the police, you still have to reckon with the fact you put whatever your own desires were above a huge track record of those groups being terrible. You still have to reckon with the fact you didn’t realize they were wrong, and were complicit in a lot of crimes.

This goes very far beyond “the action is terrible” and goes into “the system is rotten to its core, and you chose not to believe it, or to believe you could change what was built with blood.”

“Good” police officers get fired. If you try to question anything, if you try to say this action is wrong, you will absolutely get destroyed. Military’s much the same. You need some degree of buy-in to the concept of white supremacy to sign up for the military or the police, because you need to see their actions as not deal breakers instead of actions that violate multiple international laws.

In short: you need to see the people being oppressed as deserving of being oppressed to some degree in order to participate with police and the military.

Marginalized people can hold this belief, it happens. But that is a very sticky situation that outsiders shouldn’t touch.

It’s possible but difficult for you to write a white person having this sort of arc, but it would be extremely challenging to have it not come across as a white guilt story. To not have a socially aware audience roll their eyes at how long it took. You’d definitely not be writing a story with a diverse audience in mind, because you’d mostly appeal to those who saw the propaganda as just fine and not that bad.

This isn’t even getting into the oft-cited adage that boys who bully others become cops, while girls who bully become nurses. And the more police atrocities become mainstream news, the less and less people can convince themselves that becoming a police officer is a good thing.

Which brings me to the point of: how well-documented is this oppression? Is this character walking around in an oppressive situation like, say, pre-social-media where there was no direct access to the oppressed groups and you could close your eyes and look away even if it made national news? Or is this in a media connected world where these oppressed populations have a voice in the narrative?

The former has an angle of the character slowly realizing the horror and it’s slightly more forgivable for their early ignorance. But in any sort of world where there’s access to the people getting hurt? Things get more and more “ignorance is indistinguishable from maliciousness.” And keep in mind, these stories are read in the real world, where police brutality and war crimes go viral, and a lack of knowledge is getting harder and harder to defend as a position.

Media plays a huge role in shaping our perception of what’s happening. Cameras on a situation makes different activism tactics work, as we can see with how activism changed in the 60s and 70s as tv reached the masses. Social media has made it possible for you to look up firsthand accounts of discrimination within seconds.

This is a factor you are absolutely going to have to consider, when you want to look at how nice your hero is seen by marginalized or otherwise socially-aware people. If there is a way to find out how bad this superhero organization is before you sign a contract with them? Then that doesn’t look particularly good on the “hero”. You’d really have to establish them as super idealistic, super sheltered, super desperate, and/or just swallow the knowledge that they really don’t see anything that happens “over there to those people” as that bad.

All of the above is more than possible. And they’d still be seen as complicit no matter what justification you gave, because they are.

Does this mean all corrupt organization stories are off limits? No. The reason these stories have such deep cultural resonance right now is because of the propaganda I outlined above.

But you as the author are going to have to examine your own engagement with the propaganda narrative and do your own private reckoning so your own sense of guilt and compliance doesn’t bleed through the narrative too strongly, so you can tell a good story instead of an overt message story that’s you working out your own feelings.

By all means, write a story where police and the military are taken down, where propaganda is weaponized and the media is controlled (because that’s sure as hell the modern world).

But know that stories where the hero discovers the corruption already have a ticking clock because we, in the real world, are slowly being faced with a mountain of apathy instead of ignorance. The knowledge of oppression is out there so much that marginalized people are tired of the ignorance defence.

As the saying goes, “privilege is the ability to ignore the oppression of others.”

Propaganda, centralized media, and strategic cultural investment made it possible for police and the military to have a chokehold on their public perception. But that’s changing. The chokehold is starting to fade, people are starting to question their beliefs.

The past year has shown that knowledge isn’t the issue; it’s white supremacy. People don’t want to believe that any of this is that bad. People want to believe that oppression is justified, that if people just followed the law they’d be fine. They don’t want to question themselves. And marginalized people are tired of these narratives where, suddenly, people snap out of it. Because there was so much evidence to show it was bad, but it was only when you do one of the worst crimes imaginable that you realize this is bad? It’s only when it becomes personal that things are worth looking at critically?

No. And you need to examine where you are in processing your own complicity before writing a story where you’ve swapped around the ethnicities to try and distance yourself from the problem, where in the end you made the target the oppressor.

~Mod Lesya

#police brutality #oppression #arab #saudi arabia #military #superhero #superheroes #asks #violence #propaganda

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star-anise · 3 years

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I wanna reply to a reblog someone added to one of my posts, because I want to wrestle with the ideas in it without singling out the person, who I do not think deserves any kind of dogpile for being wrong. That said, I think this person is incorrect in a way that’s both common and dangerous.

TW: Domestic violence and abuse, sexual assault

This person says:

So hear me out: I am too weak to abuse a woman.

I live a very sedentary lifestyle and most of the women i’m interested in and who have shared interest could easily beat me in a fight. [...] so I would never raise a fist to them not just because it’s wrong but because i’m afraid of getting hurt back.

As a society, we are way, way too obsessed with punching people as the ultimate form of domestic violence. This is dangerous and wrong. It causes a lot of people to think, “My home life isn’t a boxing match, so I’m not being abused,” and/or “I’m not actually hitting them, so I’m not really abusive.”

I am a 5′1″/155cm disabled woman with weak and noodly arms who can’t perform a lot of basic household tasks like carrying a week’s groceries up a flight of stairs. And I could absolutely abuse someone. It isn’t about physical strength.

Abuse is not just a “man bad, woman victim” dynamic. It can happen to and by people of every gender. We need to focus on the realities of abuse and the many ways it can manifest.

In this post: What domestic violence can look like, other than hitting; how domestic violence can happen without huge explosive fights; what healthy relationships would look like instead; why it’s wrong to think of abusers as a different species from normal people.

Domestic violence might look like:

Criticizing or belittling someone’s interests or self. Making negative statements about who they are as a person. Treating them with contempt or derision. Calling them names.

Controlling everything about where a person goes, what they do, and who they talk to. Never allowing them privacy or outside relationships. Monitoring their emails or texts; listening in on their phone calls. Refusing to allow someone reasonable boundaries.

Breaking a person’s belongings. Damaging or wrecking their personal space. Throwing things at or near them.

Controlling their access to basic needs, eg. depriving them of access to money, transportation, food, medicine, or communication with the outside world.

Failing to respect someone’s personal and sexual boundaries.

As well, these things count as abuse whether or not they happen as a Big Loud Scary Confrontation, or quietly, in the consequences afterwards. Like, it counts whether you say “You will never be allowed to leave this house without me!” or just quietly spend the money that was going to repair your partner’s car on something else. It counts whether you force a sexual act on someone who’s visibly resisting, or refuse to speak to or even acknowledge someone for several days after they’ve set a sexual boundary.

And it can be hard, in a relationship, to figure out what healthy and reasonable boundaries are. These are rules that abusers can use to their own ends, rhetorically maximizing the harm to themselves and minimizing their harm to others. “By being in the house when I’m on work phone calls, you’re denying my right to privacy,” they’ll say, ignoring that forcing their partner to be out of the house for eight hours a day is denying them access to basic shelter and they need a different solution, or, "By pointing out how scared and hurt you were by my violent behaviour, which I cannot possibly be expected to change, you’re criticizing me and belittling my feelings.”

At which point it can help to focus on what a healthy relationship would look like:

Consensual: Everyone involved is freely choosing to be there and can, if they want, leave the relationship without serious impairment of their ability to live an independent life

Surrounded by resources: Partners are able to turn outside the relationship, if they want, to express their emotions, achieve their goals, pursue their interests, connect with family and friends, receive support, or take time away from their partner. This is regarded as enriching each partner’s life and strengthening the health of the relationship.

Safe: No one feels threatened or in danger. People are able to assume that their partners will have their best interests and happiness at heart. Partners ensure that everyone in the relationship has what they need. Nobody has to worry that a disagreement or bad day with their partner will make other parts of their life unmanageable.

Respectful: Everyone’s emotions and values matter and are given equal weight. Everyone is seen as deserving the same basic rights to material security, safety, emotional validation, and physical space.

Fair: When there is a conflict, partners work together in a respectful and non-combative way to negotiate a solution that is acceptable to everyone.

Honest and accountable: People admit to the part they play in things and are willing to own their contributions to both success and conflict.

Mutually enriching: Each partner is committed to the goal of a relationship that leaves them all, collectively and individually, better off as people: receiving everything they need, capable of independence, supported and validated, and treated with respect.

Healthy relationships are complicated! They can be really difficult. They demand a lot of interpersonal and social skills that don’t come naturally, so if you haven’t been taught them, you can really struggle. I can really struggle. Anyone can really struggle.

It is really important to realize that abuse doesn’t result from someone waking up like, “I think I will be a Horrible Person to my partner today” and getting ready to rumble. It results from people with limited coping skills and particular attitudes about relationships and how to handle conflict trying to get what they want. Someone could be a really great partner, up until they encounter a problem they don’t feel able to solve any other way than overriding their partner’s feelings and using what force is available to achieve their goal.

But those are things we have the ability to address and improve, if we want to. A few starting places:

Positive ways to avoid toxic conflict

Signs of emotional abuse

Resources for domestic violence

If you want to support my work writing this kind of content, please consider supporting me through PayPal or Patreon.

#staranise original #domestic violence tw #ipv tw #intimate terrorism tw #emotional abuse tw

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allywritesforfun · 3 years

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{Behind the Glasses} c!Eret x Fem!Reader

summary: you are about to get married to Eret, but you still don't know what he's trying to hide from you. you have to find out before you commit

pronouns: she/her

word count: 1569

trigger warning: kind of angsty

masterlist

The days in the castle were always fun. Eret was a great king and to be honest, he didn't do much except build. No one really needed his help and he tried to stay out of every fight on the server after his betrayal.

Shortly after he became King, you two met. It was really a ‘love at first sight’ moment. You just knew that you had to go talk to him. And now here you are, years later as his Queen in waiting.

Today was an alright day. You and Eret didn't do much except walk around, sit by the lake, and you did do a little cleaning. It was night time now. You started the fireplace while he got into his night wear.

“Eret, love,” You called out. “Are you hungry or anything? I can make some potatoes.”

Eret appeared from the hallway, “No, I’m alright. I should be able to make it through the night. I think I just wanna stay in here and snuggle.”

You smiled, “Okay, I like the sound of that.”

Eret brought in a blanket and a few pillows and placed them on the ground. You ended up pushing them a little further back to make sure that they didn't catch on fire. You were always nervous about fires and explosions. The server was so unpredictable in nature. You always feared of messing up. If something ever got destroyed or broken while you were just with Eret, everyone would accuse you of being a traitor. And you couldn't blame. If you were anyone else you would think the same.

Eret noticed a while back how careful you were. Almost everything that you did outside was staged. The people had no reason to trust you. You don't have any huge or interesting backstory. You just kinda joined and started living your life. You could understand why they might’ve thought that you were strange and wanted to avoid you.

You trusted Eret with your life. You knew that he was ready to burn empires to the ground if they tried to hurt you. But you never really knew much about Eret. Well you knew a lot, but it all came from stories of others, not himself. You tried not to look too far into it, but it lurked in the back of your mind.

Eret sat down next to you, getting as close as possible that he could without squishing you. He took his cape and placed it over both of your shoulders.

You two stared at the fire. You always wondered how it looked to him. Those glasses are all darkened out. If you couldn't see into them, how was he supposed to see out?

“You know we’re inside right?” You asked.

Eret awkwardly chuckled, “Well yeah, we’ve been inside for a while now.”

“There’s no sun in here,” You pointed out. “You can take off those glasses.”

He backed away from you, “Absolutely not.”

No one has ever told you why he wears the glasses 24/7. It was frustrating to you. Whenever you tried to ask him about it, he would distance himself and go all quiet for the rest of the day. You tried asking other people, but they never told you anything. ‘It’s just best if he tells you,’ they all would say.

You were sick of being denied. You had to know. And it was going to be today whether he liked it or not. You guys are gonna get married soon. You had to know every part of him before you could make the full commitment.

“Eret,” You lowered your voice. “It feels like everyone else knows about the glasses except me. No one will tell me what they’re about. It's not fair. I’m supposed to be the one that knows everything about you, but people know secrets about you that I don't know.”

“Good,” Eret said. “They listen to orders well.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Eret told you. “I told them not to tell you otherwise there would be a punishment.”

You looked at him astonished. You always felt like an outsider. You assumed it was because of Eret and people just didn't want to get close to you, but it wasn't about that. You could have friends right now if it wasn't for Eret. You could belong to something more than the throne, “You’re joking right?”

Eret shook his head, “It's better this way.”

“No, it's not,” You argued. “I have no friends. I have you and that's all. I could be living an actual life right now, but no. You had to go threaten the people for what? For glasses? That's ridiculous.”

You stood up and started pacing around. When you're mad you pace, it was the best way to get your energy out in a nonviolent way.

“Sit back down,” Eret urged. “Just don't worry about it. Come here and snuggle.”

You shook your head, at this point you couldn't even look at him, “No, I'm leaving.”

“Leaving?” Eret repeated. “Don't leave. It's not that big of a deal. I won't keep them on forever.”

“Not a big deal?” You asked. “It's big enough of a deal to threaten everyone! To isolate me!”

“I didn’t think people would avoid you!” Eret stood up. “I really didn't mean for that to happen, that was a consequence. I’m really sorry about that, I really am.”

“Tell me what the glasses are for. You take them off when I’m asleep and when you know you’re going to be alone, that’s it. Tell me what they’re hiding.”

He shook his head, “I-I ca-”

You cut him off, “Then we’re done. If I don't know who you are, then I can't trust you. And if you can't trust me to know, then it's not worth it.”

Eret tried to walk closer to you but you backed away, “Don't do this.”

You nodded, “I'm knowing right now or I’m leaving the Greater SMP all together. You won't see me ever again.”

Eret shook his head. He went quiet for a couple seconds debating, “Okay. But there’s all a purpose to this okay? It doesn't affect my person at all. I'm still who I am, alright?”

You nodded, “Go on then.”

He looked at you and placed his fingers to them, he didn't move. He roughly pulled his hand away from them, “I won't let you put mirrors in here for a reason you know.”

You nodded, “Yeah, at first you didn’t want to see yourself after the betrayal. You couldn't even look at yourself. Now that I’m here you don't want me to get in my head about how I look.”

He nodded, “All of that is true. But these glasses, they hide a part of me that I don't wanna remember existed. That's the deeper reason why I won't have mirrors in here. I scare people, and sometimes I scare myself.”

You were beyond confused at this point, “Just tell me, Eret. It's alright.”

“Just don't be scared,” He begged. “Just give me a minute after to compose myself. You’re the first person to see this part of me.”

You nodded, “I'm not leaving.”

Eret took a deep breath and slowly took them off. He was right, you were scared at first, but you did your best to hide it. You froze up. His eyes, pure white looking back at you. You stood confused and panicked. You kept in mind what he said about giving him a minute. You slowly walked towards him, holding your hand out. He gently took it, pulling you closer.

“Your eyes,” You started, “I mean-obviously your eyes, but. How did this happen?”

“I was born with it,” He whispered. “I don't know much about them at all. I just know that he has them.”

You hugged Eret. You could feel that he was weak just from talking about it.

He continued on, “I’m nothing like him. I-I promise. I don't wanna hurt anyone. The betrayal... “

You cut him off. You noticed that he never said his name. You could feel that he was disappointed in himself since he was born and learned about him, “The betrayal was something that you were tricked into doing. Dream took advantage of that. L’manberg doesn’t matter anymore. It's blown up by its own founder. Really, don't worry about it. No one cares anymore.”

“I hurt people. Got them killed,” Eret said, laying his head on your shoulder.

“It’s okay, Eret,” You pulled away to look at him and smiled. “They are quite pretty, you know.”

He shook his head, “Don't flatter me. You can't even tell where I’m looking.”

You laughed, “That just makes you more interesting. I love them.”

“You’re not scared of me?”

“No,” You replied. “I have no reason to be. You haven't done a thing to me or anyone to make anyone think that you would ever come close to doing what he does. Just relax okay? Thank you for telling me. I understand if you want to wear them ins-”

“I don't want to,” He happily said. “Everything is so dark, there’s no vibrancy.” He leaned in closer to you, rubbing your cheek with his hand. “Like your eyes, they have color. Like I never got to see them because you were either sleeping or these damn glasses.”

You smiled, “Then keep them off, you look beautiful.”

#eret #eret x reader #the_eret #the_eret x reader #x reader #c!eret #c!eret x reader #eret oneshot #eret imagine #c!oneshot #c!eret imagine #fem!reader #dsmp #dsmp x reader

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young-dumb-and-vaccinated · 3 years

Text

Cult Girl: Doctorate (Hannibal x Female!Reader) pt. 6

Positive

Cult girl and Hannibal find a way to turn a life-altering mistake to their favor.

@wisesandwichshark

Trigger warnings: accidental pregnancy, discussion of abortion, adoption, slight emetophobia

Another week passed and the 'hangover' didn't subside. Then a third week passed, so you had to give up the façade and just admit you were sick. Hannibal was smugly concerned, but not alarmed. It paid to have a doctor for a fiancé. Studying could be done from bed and you needed to be in perfect working order to burn down your grandmother's country club and fully enjoy it.

Hannibal wasn't so much of a hypochondriac that he denied you affection while bed-ridden. That, or he didn't believe what you had was contagious. Whatever it was.

It wasn't until you woke up late, just days before the start of the new semester, that you discovered. You hobbled blindly to the bathroom to take your medicine. You were fully prepared to drop to your knees and vomit in the toilet and you wanted nothing more than to return to bed and slip back into sweet unconsciousness. Not even microdosing meth could keep you awake.

You slid your birth control packet out of its sleeve. You were halfway through the green placebo pills, so you were sure that didn't help how miserable you felt. This period sure had a hell of a build-up.

That's when a number caught your eye.

It was a number you weren't even previously aware existed. A date on your birth control packet. Dated three months prior.

You weren't lucid enough to comprehend what it meant, but once it hit you, you spit the pill into the sink.

Expired. You thought. How the fuck do pills expire?

No. No. No. No.

"[F/N]?" Hannibal said. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah." You called back. "I... just need to take a shower."

You turned the faucet on. It was a bad lie and he would figure it out eventually, but you couldn't involve him. Not yet. You needed a minute alone to think.

You found the pregnancy test you stashed under the sink all those years ago. You double-checked the lock, then began the test. There was no romantic or even palatable way to describe the process of peeing on a stick, quietly as possible, to avoid your frankly terrifying fiancé's notice. Once it was done, you wrapped the still-loading test in toilet paper and shoved it back under the sink.

You had no idea how long it would take to give you a result. Or if waiting four years to use it would give you a false result. There was so much you didn't know.

You jumped into the shower and washed up, trying to push all thoughts of panic out of your head. It didn't work. You went right into bury-the-body mode. A fall down the stairs could best pass for an accident, but had the unintended consequences of severe bodily harm. You wondered if those special herbal teas actually worked and where you'd find one. Or, instead of investing in gimmicky, pseudo-scientific abortion teas or throwing yourself down a flight of stairs, you could just talk to him.

You sat on the bathroom floor in a towel for what felt like hours, holding the mummified pregnancy test between your fingers. It took all your strength to rip through the tissue paper and confirm what you already knew.

A big, obnoxious pink plus sign. Almost like it was rubbing it in.

Your head was screaming just talk to him. He was your goddamn fiancé. The man you were going to spend the rest of your life with. But you couldn't tell him. Not after what he said at the country club.

"Hannibal?" You called out, voice weak. "Can you come here, please?"

He opened the bathroom door to find you huddled against the sink wearing nothing but a towel. It was a sight that would make anyone freak out.

"My god, [F/N]." He took a knee beside you. "Are you hurt? Did you hit your head?"

You gestured to the pregnancy test at your side. You hugged your knees into your chest and waited for him to process everything.

He looked at you with an unreadable expression. "I thought you were on birth control?"

You covered your face with your hands. "I did too. Nobody told me that the pills actually expire."

Then came the question that you were dreading.

"What do you want to do?"

That was why you were hesitant to tell him. Not because he would try to make a decision for you, but because he wouldn't.

"I don't know." You blurted out. "What do you want to do?"

Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "You know I can't tell you that. You need to decide for yourself."

"That's what I was afraid you were going to say." You threw your head back in exasperation. "I'm just asking for a little direction. You said you definitely wanted to have kids-"

"Not like this." He cut you off. "Not when it would derail your entire career.”

“Look, you know I was on the fence about having kids at all.” You rambled, just trying to collect your thoughts. “But then you described what you wanted for us and it just sounded so nice.”

“Darling, I am begging you,” He pressed his fingers to his temples. “Please, decide for yourself and only yourself.”

“I’m trying!” You objected. “I just need a second to think.”

“Don’t think, just answer.” He implored. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to get an abortion.” You blurted out before slapping your hand over your mouth.

“Was that really so hard to say?” Hannibal asked, voice broken with relief. Relief of what, you couldn’t place.

You couldn’t bring yourself to make eye contact with him. “It was, a little.”

“Why?” He tilted his head curiously. “And please don’t say it was because of me.”

“I don’t know.” You shrugged, hiding your face again. “I just learned I was pregnant, like, five minutes ago. I shouldn’t be expected to make a choice this massive without at least ten minutes to think about it.”

“Do you really want to get an abortion?” He asked.

Your voice wobbled with uncertainty. “No... yes?”

“I see.” He said, as if this were just a point of academic curiosity that didn’t involve him whatsoever. “Is there a part of you, no matter how small, that wants to see the pregnancy to term?”

“Well, yeah. Thus the basis of my uncertainty.” You threw your hands up. “But I also know it’s insanely unrealistic to think I could just speedrun my last two years of school and however long it takes to establish a career just to get to the domestic bliss.”

“You would do good to not expect motherhood to be a blissful retirement plan, love." Hannibal gently scorned. "Parenting takes just as much commitment as your studies. Likely more."

"I know." You bashed your palms against your forehead. "I said it was unrealistic, didn't I? Look, I just don't foresee any worthwhile outcomes if I carry this pregnancy to term. Even to put it up for adoption just seems selfish. Why bring a kid into the world just to set them up for a shitty life?"

Hannibal paused, and looked off into the distance pensively.

"If you could forgive me a hypothetical," He began. "What if we could guarantee them a wonderful life?"

"Are we talking philosophy, or do you have an actual suggestion?" You probed.

"A bit of both, depending on where your mind takes you." He smirked as if he were about to say something very clever. "What if Beatrice [L/N]'s estate made sure our child had a safe, comfortable upbringing? With a weighty college trust fund in their name, naturally."

You couldn't tell if this was brilliant or insane. It all depended on how 'hypothetical' the whole situation really was. Either way, you were interested.

"Go on." You urged, letting the idea slither into your mind.

"There's nothing in the will that specifically states we must raise the child ourselves." He recounted. "Only that it must be of blood descent."

You hadn't considered that, but it made sense once you heard it out loud. Your grandmother had many skills to make her a sharp manipulator, but her inattention to detail was always her downfall.

“Forty-five million extra dollars in the bank would be nice.” You said. You were humoring him at first, but when you said it out loud, it rang true.

“Forty-five is drops in the bucket compared to what we can get from her property.” He added. “The house and the golf course.”

You put your hand on your chin, actually, seriously considering it. You were on the precipice of inheriting more money than you could possibly spend in one lifetime. Money that could make so many problems go away overnight. Money you could hand out to anyone you wanted to, just to make their lives a little easier. You pictured yourself giving waitstaff six-figure tips, or handing a hundred dollar bill to someone asking for change on the street. You could erase your best friend's college debt as a birthday present. Get Hannibal a proper gift. All with money you bled out of your abusers.

It was divine justice. All at the price of nine months of your life.

"So..." Your voice trailed off. "We just need to keep this thing alive for the next nine months..."

"We can find an adoptive family in that time." Hannibal nodded along. "And we can set up a college fund for the child to be given to them on their 18th birthday."

"And we could make the adoption open, in case the child ever wants to meet us." You said.

"Right." He agreed. "Allowing the option for an adoptee to meet their biological parents is much better for their mental health and adjustment."

You covered your mouth with your hand, only to hide your excitement. "I take it back, I'm starting to see a positive outcome."

#hannibal lecter #hannibal x you #hannibal x reader #hannibal nbc #cult girl doctorate #cult girl 2 #cult girl #tw abortion #tw pregnancy #accidental pregnancy

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hamletteprinceofdenmark · 3 years

Text

I don’t care if it’s been months. Technoblade was fucking wrong and I will die mad about it.

Let me start this off by saying that I really like Technoblade as a character. I think he’s very interesting and acts as a great counterbalance on the Dream SMP, but drawing a parallel between c!Tommy and Theseus was wrong and it drives me up the wall that it’s become an established thing both in canon and fandom.

If you are going to draw a parallel between c!Tommy and a Greek hero, the clear parallel is Achilles.

Here we have a man. This man has anger management issues. He is known to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation, hold grudges, and deliberately goad others in a way that can feel petty and immature. On the other hand this is a man whose fatal flaw is his unwavering loyalty to others. A man who, when properly motivated, will be the first to charge and the last to retreat. A man who feels everything to the fullest, known for his passion rather than his thoughtfulness or strategy (though don’t let that fool you, he has those qualities, they are simply not as “on display” as others may be).

This is a man with a very close personal male friend. This friend is perceived as being sweet and calm, a balm against their rather abrasive counterpart. This is misleading. The friend is also violent and chaotic, but hides it better than most, and certainly better than their friend.

Everyone loves the friend. Not everyone loves the man.

The man goes into a homicidal rage when that friend was harmed and killed.

Is any of this sounding familiar at all?!

Do you know what the name “Achilles” means?

“He who carries the distress of his people”.

The triple meaning of which is either: “he carries the burden of the distress of his people”, “he creates that distress himself”, or “he brings distress to others on behalf of his people”, and have you ever, ever in your life heard a more accurate description of mr tommy innit.

Here’s the other thing. Theseus is a dick. He is the biggest fucking dick. He’s a manipulator. An opportunist. He never considers the consequences of how his choices might affect others. He betrays allies at every opportunity and takes credit for anything and everything that may reflect well on him, regardless of who actually thought of it.

Do you want to know why Theseus was exiled by his people? Why he died alone?

The way Techno tells it, it seems like the people are in the wrong. Why would people betray and exile their Hero? Seems pretty ungrateful. I’ll tell you why.

TLDR c!Tommy’s parallel in Greek mythology is Achilles not fucking Theseus

Please understand, Theseus doesn’t go to defeat the Minotaur for any noble reason. It has nothing to do with the fact that the people under his care are being taken on a regular basis by an opposing city state in order to be fed to an Unholy Monster of Death (who’s actually a victim in all of this but that’s a whole other post). It’s for his ego. It’s because he’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of the Mediterranean Basin egging him on to be the biggest best Hero Prince there ever was.

It’s also important to note that the term “Hero” does not have any moral standing connected to it in the world of Greek Mythology. Being a Hero does not mean you are a good person. It means you make a good story.

At the time he goes to defeat the Minotaur, Theseus is actually fairly new to the whole prince gig (long story) but it means that the people of Athens aren’t exactly attached to him. He kind of just turned up. He hasn’t earned their loyalty or respect. They don’t know him enough to love him, let alone reviere him.

His dad does want to know if he succeeds though.

This tribute is a great tragedy for their people so the ships that carry them away and come back empty always have black sails, both in mourning and in recognition of their sacrifice. So Dad says “Hey, if, against all odds, you end up succeeding and defeating the Minotaur, switch out the black sails for white sails, and I’ll know even before you arrive that our people are safe. I’ll keep a look out on that cliff. See you soon ... or not” Then he probably patted Theseus awkwardly on the shoulder or something.

So Theseus boards the ship with all the other miserable 20 somethings who think they’re as dead as freshly plated steak tartare with the expressed intention of destroying the Minotaur in a blaze of self reflecting Glory and making his name as a Hero.

Theseus only defeats the Minotaur, by the way, because Ariadne, a Cretian princess, did practically all the heavy lifting for him. She’s the one who figures it all out. She’s the one who understands the intricacies of the maze, and she is the one who comes up with the plan of using thread as a guide back out of that maze. She’s also the one who stands sentinel at the entrance and makes sure he doesn’t run out of said thread. All of this help and guidance is given upon the understanding that, having utterly betrayed her own kingdom, Theseus will take her back to Athens and marry her, ensuring her safety.

Except Theseus doesn’t want to marry her. He never wanted to marry her. He’s a young prince in his prime with years of Heroing ahead of him. Ariadne was only ever a means to an end.

So they defeat the Minotaur. Big Whoop.

The ship stops off on a little island before returning home and Theseus sends Ariadne off to get supplies (there’s a dear). Literally as soon as Ariadne is out of sight Theseus is in such a hurry to avoid his responsibilities and promises that he pulls that ship straight back out onto the open sea, before his crew can do anything else (such as change the sails perhaps, remember that).

He abandons the one person who actually helped him, completely alone, without any resources, in a foreign land, and unable to return home even if she wanted to.

Dad now sees the sails that he’s been on a look out for this whole time, hoping and praying for white. Instead he sees black and is so overcome with despair that he throws himself right off the cliff, commiting suicide and leaving Athens leaderless.

So when Theseus does rock up, the people of Athens understandably want nothing to do with him. He’s only recently become prince anyway. No one cares about him or is loyal to him. The king has just commited suicide because of him, leaving the city state in complete disarray, he’s just abandoned a key ally, proving that his word is worthless, and has demonstrated beyond a doubt that he is not fit to be a leader, let alone their Prince.

So they exile him.

He goes on to have more adventures of course, and he does become one of the most well-known “Heroes” in Greek Mythology, but don’t for one second think he improves.

Theseus is a dick. He will always be a dick.

He never learns, never grows, and in the end, dies alone and abandoned, just as he abandoned so many others before him.

TLDR c!Tommy’s parallel in Greek mythology is Achilles NOT fucking Theseus

#Dream smp #Dsmp #tommyinnit #c!tommy #c!technoblade #achilles #theseus #greek mythology #technoblade #so i finally wrote the essay lol #my meta #THESEUS IS A DICK I HATE HIM SO MUCH 😤#also for those of you wondering don’t worry Ariadne was fine she ended up with Dionysus (you know the God) and they actually have one #of the few stable marriages in the pantheon

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